<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>i'm used to living (on the other side) by fruitxbat</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25118767">i'm used to living (on the other side)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruitxbat/pseuds/fruitxbat'>fruitxbat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Office (US)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Light Angst, Not Canon Compliant, Ryan-centric, as a treat, excessive mentions of mid to late 2000s popular alt music, karen/jim is background and minor, no karen bashing, no kelly bashing, with bits of pam-centric</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:46:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>45,970</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25118767</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fruitxbat/pseuds/fruitxbat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He can’t sleep once he gets home, sprawling out on the couch and flicking through late night TV, instead. He’s in deep, so much deeper than he realized, and he maybe sort of understands why Halpert fucked off to Connecticut. Kind of. </p><p>-</p><p>Jim leaves for Stamford. Ryan takes his desk. Pam calls it off with Roy. These three things are distinctly related. Post-season 2 AU.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Karen Filippelli/Jim Halpert, Pam Beesly/Ryan Howard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. we're so close to something better left unknown</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is nothing more than a concept that not only grew legs, but also ran amok; what started as 'what if Pam and Ryan went on a few dates while Jim was Stamford' turned into a loose re-write of seasons 3-5. It's mostly fluff, with some really mild angst towards the middle. I tried to be faithful to Ryan's character as he's shown in the earlier seasons, without turning him into the caricature circus he becomes later on. It's mostly Ryan-centric, with a few chapters written focusing on Pam.<br/>Most of this is already written; there's a few missing spots to fill in, but updates should roll along steadily and fairly frequently as I edit.<br/>Many thanks to Viago, especially for agreeing to read over it, even though she has very little interest in The Office. Any mistakes left are my own.<br/>Work title is from Bear Hands' 'Long Lean Queen', chapter title from Metric's 'Gimme Sympathy'.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/> “You’re still going to marry him?” Jim asks, and it hangs there, between them, hovering. Pam knows, somewhere in her chest, that she could disperse it with a single exhale, one small word, but she holds her breath instead. <br/><br/> “Yeah,” she says, and Jim’s never looked this wounded, this vulnerable. She wants to take it back the moment she says it, but somehow it’s already too late. He’s still close enough that she can count the few tiny freckles across the bridge of his nose, but it feels like a chasm has split between them, and no amount of words she can say will build a bridge across the gap. <br/><br/> He nods, once, twice, and takes a step back, hands shoved deep in his pockets. Pam just stands there, fingers twisting around each other, and Jim backs out the office, out of the conversation. She’s not sure what she’s supposed to say- surely there’s some sort of combination of words that would make him stay, make this right, some order she could string together to make sense of this- but then the door clicks shut with a soft <em>shnick</em> and she’s alone, standing by Jim’s desk. </p><p>—</p><p> Pam doesn’t mention it to Roy. It doesn’t matter, really, she reasons; Jim’s packed up and moved to Connecticut, anyway, and she’s still going to marry Roy. There’s no use getting him all worked up and angry about this, especially when they’ll just get over it in a week. <br/><br/> She does plan on still marrying him. She does. They get in the truck every morning and drive to the office, and they drive home together every evening. She makes them dinner, something quick, and Roy watches whatever sports game is playing while Pam does the dishes. They watch <em>Survivor</em> together on Wednesdays, and he does the ironing while she packs them lunches for the next day, and as she dog-ears her book every night before turning out the light, she thinks, <em>I can do this</em>. She can. <br/><br/> She can marry Roy, and this can be the rest of her life, and she can be happy. <br/><br/> She <em>will</em> be happy. <br/><br/> Even when she gets home from a jog on a Saturday afternoon, and Roy’s friends are over, and they’re drunk, all of them, at three PM, and Roy bearhugs her in the exact way he knows she doesn’t like. <br/><br/> Even when she spends all day after work making his favorite dinner- she makes the hamburgers from scratch, bought yeast to make fresh buns with- and Roy calls as she’s setting the table to say he’s going to be in late tonight. He and Daryl stopped by Poor Richard’s and ended up in a pool tournament, and she tells him to have fun, and she eats her burger alone on the couch instead. <br/><br/> And even when he blows money that they don’t really have on a new Xbox and they end up in a heated argument that Pam’s not even really sure is about the Xbox anymore, he still kisses her forehead goodnight that evening, and she curls up against him. She can do this. <br/><br/> She can. <br/><br/> She has to. </p><p>—</p><p> It was weird, at first, seeing Ryan sitting at Jim’s desk. She spent the first week or so accidentally staring at him, expecting a shared look of amusement and commiseration every time Michael or Dwight did something particularly asinine. Ryan would only give her raised eyebrows instead, a ‘can I help you?’ look that she wasn’t used to. <br/><br/> She’s mostly gotten used to it now, three weeks later, and she’s started keeping a log in a notebook on her desk of every screwball thing that happens. She figures she can use them as inspiration, if she ever gets around to writing that comic. <br/><br/> On Monday, though, Dwight stands on top of his desk and announces that he’ll be conducting thorough interviews with each of them about their sexual histories- something about how Oscar is gay and now Michael needs to know if anyone else is gay so he doesn’t offend anyone else-  and Pam’s eyes slide automatically to Ryan’s. <br/><br/> To her surprise, he’s already looking at her, his lips pressed together in both severe annoyance and stifled laughter, and Pam has to quickly cough into her elbow to cover the giggle that bubbles up out of her. Ryan chuckles too, once, and turns back to his computer before Pam can respond in kind. She wants to hold on to this moment, but it flits past her, already gone. <br/><br/> “What are you laughing at, Temp?” Dwight demands, staring down at Ryan. It’s Dwight’s best Authoritative Voice, one that would actually be scary if it wasn’t coming from a man with a middle part and mustard-yellow short-sleeve button down. <br/><br/> “Nothing,” Ryan says, his voice even as he clicks around on his computer screen, and Dwight starts in on bullying him about his sexuality right there in the middle of the bullpen. Michael has to come out of his own office, screaming at Dwight to sit back down. <br/><br/> Pam jots it down in her little notebook on lunch, and she hesitates for a minor second before including the part about her and Ryan. It feels monumental, that tiny wry look they shared, for whatever reason, and it feels wrong to omit it. Like omitting it would be a confession of something secret she doesn’t even know she has. <br/><br/> So she writes it down and meets Roy in the break room, where they eat the sandwiches she packed last night and Roy complains about having to go a tuxedo fitting that weekend. </p><p>—</p><p> Pam’s been typing the same sentence of an email forward for twenty minutes; she keeps having to backspace phrases she’s picking up from Ryan and Kelly’s overly loud argument. It’s five-thirty-nine, and she should’ve left over a half hour ago, but she needs to get this email done before she can go. <br/><br/> She deletes ‘You can’t keep stringing me along like this, Ryan,’ for the third time and tries, again, to refocus on the sheet Michael’d handed her earlier. The rest of the office is empty, though Pam’s not sure that would matter- Kelly likes having an audience for her arguments. Pam manages to get through another line without a mistake, and she gives herself a mental pat on the back as she hits enter, a tiny grin on her face. She’s great at ignoring things, she thinks, and she starts in on the last paragraph. <br/><br/> “Don’t you agree, Pam?” Kelly’s voice cuts through her like glass, and Pam’s fingers freeze over the keyboard, her soft pink nails hovering mid-sentence. She looks at them without moving her head; Kelly’s staring at her expectantly, her arms crossed, but Ryan’s a step behind her, his eyes wide and pleading. <br/><br/> Pam’s gotten pretty good at reading Ryan’s facial expressions over the past few weeks, and she’s (unfortunately) witnessed enough of his and Kelly’s fights to know that whatever this one’s about, Ryan just wants it to be over. His eyebrows are ever so slightly knitted together, his bottom lip held tightly between his teeth. If Kelly were to turn around, she’d think he was just concerned about their argument, but Pam can tell he’s begging her to say something that will end it and he can go home. <br/><br/> “I- agree with what?” she stutters, and she mirrors Ryan’s expression back to him for a split second, just long enough for him to know she understands and she’s on board. Kelly, sighing dramatically and expressively, misses the quick exchange. <br/><br/> “<em>Pam</em>, please. It’s like you weren’t even listening,” Kelly whines. <br/><br/> “I wasn’t,” Pam says, quietly enough that she doesn’t think they’ll hear it, but Ryan snorts a quick laugh that he has to cover with his hand. Not that Kelly would pick up on it, anyway, not in the middle of her rant. <br/><br/> “-and then Ryan is still sleeping with Miranda from his complex, even though I specifically told him that makes me really angry, and it’s like no, we’re not exclusive, but that doesn’t mean he can still keep being other women, especially when it hurts my feelings. Right?” she finishes, and she recrosses her arms and stares at Pam, confident that she’s in the right. <br/><br/> Pam fumbles for a minute, her words not landing right in her mouth. “Did- isn’t that what not being exclusive means?” she asks, finally, a little confused on why they’re even fighting about this. <br/><br/> “Fine!” Kelly screeches, throwing her hands in the air. “You win this one, Ryan Howard! We are over! Don’t even try to call me later, because I’m blocking your number!” and then she’s gone, the office door clattering shut behind her. She’s sobbing, heavily, and they can hear it echoing around in the empty hallway before the elevator arrives. <br/><br/> “We were never together,” Ryan calls after, though without any real effort, and when he turns back to Pam, he’s got a full, real grin on his face. “Thank you, so much.” <br/><br/> “No problem,” Pam says, and it comes out as more of a chuckle than anything else, and she turns back to her computer screen, already powering through the rest of her email. “Do you think she means it this time?” she asks, and though she can’t see Ryan, she hears him pause in packing up his workbag. <br/><br/> “I hope so,” he says, after what seems like a beat or two too long. “She’s great, really, but I just…” <br/><br/> “Wasn’t looking for what she was?” Pam offers, and when she looks up, Ryan’s already looking back at her. He smiles, again, smaller this time and a little more tenderly, and nods. It’s silent as she finishes up and packs up her own bag, companionable and easy, and as she’s pulling on her jacket, she turns halfway towards him. Ryan’s fiddling around with his blackberry, his own jacket half-on and his tongue poking out just a little between his teeth as he types feverishly on it. <br/><br/> “Do you- would you want to go get a drink?” she asks, and she’s not sure where it comes from, but now that it’s out there between them there’s no way she wants to take it back. Roy’s already gone, anyway- he left her the truck today after she told him she was going to have to stay late, and him and Daryl went to go see one of the other warehouse workers’ bands. <br/><br/> Ryan looks up from his blackberry, his expression not quite confused, but he nods and puts the phone in his pocket anyway. “Yeah, actually, I would,” he says, and pulls the rest of his jacket on. “Poor Richard’s?” <br/><br/> “How about Al’s?” she suggests- too much of a potential to run into a coworker at Poor Richard’s, and for some reason she doesn’t want Kevin to bumble his way into this and intrude. Intrude on what, she’s not sure, but whatever it is feels private, small, like something to be tended to. <br/><br/> Ryan grins, gesturing for Pam to lead the way to the parking lot. “Al’s it is,” he says. <br/><br/> They stay for far longer than they should, but Ryan keeps telling jokes and Pam can’t help but laugh at the way he picks at Dwight’s weird little idiosyncrasies. He’s not funny in the same way Jim was- Jim would’ve done a spot-on impression of Dwight, would’ve middle parted his hair and emphasized different syllables, but Ryan’s better at observing, at pulling apart Dwight in the most hyper-specific ways. She snorts into her beer at one point, and Ryan can’t help but laugh harder at that, snorting into his own beer in surprise. <br/><br/> By the time Pam checks her phone it’s past nine. Roy hasn’t texted or called, which means he’s still out with Daryl, and Pam’s tempted to stay a little later herself, but it’s Thursday, and she knows herself, and she knows if she’s not asleep soon then her whole day tomorrow’ll be ruined. <br/><br/> Ryan picks up the whole tab, even though Pam puts up a good argument (“I can pay for myself, Ryan, it’s not 1955.” “Save the money for your wedding. You’re gonna spend the rest of your life married to Roy, you need a safety net for more impulse Xboxes.”). <br/><br/> Roy’s still not home when she gets there, though she really didn’t expect him to be. The cat’s dish is low, so she pours some extra kibble in it for Spud and takes off her makeup. She feels light, a little brighter than she has in a while. <br/><br/> She doesn’t stir when Roy gets home, but when she wakes up the next morning to shower he’s snoring in her ear, and she pats his arm a little to rouse him. </p><p>—<br/> <br/> It’s June third when she wakes up in a cold sweat, too warm and yet shivering. Her back is plastered to Roy’s front, sticky and pressing and she feels like she’s drowning for a split second. She slips out of bed and into the living room, closing the doors behind her softly so she doesn’t wake him up. Roy’s a heavy sleeper, hadn’t even stirred when she got up, but she doesn’t want to chance it, pulling the bedroom door tight. <br/><br/> It’s almost one, that weird part of the night when late night television hasn’t quite ended and the infomercials are just starting to take over the networks, and she turns Comedy Central on mute, watching it mindlessly. <br/><br/> The wedding is exactly one week away, and it’s sitting in her stomach like a brick, heavy and thick and impenetrable. She’s not sure what ‘cold feet’ means, not really, but this feels like it could be it. She wants to marry Roy, really, she does, she’s just not sure if she can. The skin around her nails is bitten raw by one-thirty, and as the cable finally breaks into pure adverts, she steps out onto the back deck. It’s a balmy summer evening, one where time feels like it might be stopped and the stars stretch on forever. <br/><br/> She doesn’t fully realize she’s dialed her phone until it the other line starts ringing. <br/><br/> “Hello?” the voice is groggy and sleep-thick, and Pam almost just hangs up. She’s not sure why she called him, not really- they’re friends, but not to this level, not to where she’s allowed to call him in the middle of the night, to wake him up with her problems. Her voice keeps getting gets stuck in her throat, and she coughs a little. <br/><br/> “Hello?” Ryan says again, and there’s a bit of rustling- she guesses he’s pulling the phone away to check the number- before his voice is in her ear again. “Pam? Is everything okay?” <br/><br/> “Yes,” she says, hoarsely, and she knows it’s a lie immediately because all of a sudden there’s tears rolling down her cheeks. She sits on the deck stairs, the stone cool through her flannel boxers. She’s trying to apologize, she can hear herself trying to choke out an ‘I’m so sorry to bother you,’ through her sobs, but she can’t quite force the words out. <br/><br/> “Hey,” Ryan says, and it’s soothing without being condescending, his voice soft even through the tinniness of the receiver. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?” <br/><br/> “I- I- I-,” she stutters, and she takes a deep, wobbly breath before she can finally eke it out. “I’m getting married to Roy next week.” <br/><br/> There’s a pause on the other end, and she can tell Ryan’s not exactly sure why this is the issue- she’s complained to him, on more than one occasion, about the little things Roy does that get on her nerves, but it’s never been any sort of major red flag or deal breaker. Ryan’s always laughed about it, and they have a little back and forth going about Roy’s bumbling cluelessness whenever Ryans pops by the reception desk for a jellybean- because he does that, now, and it’s fun to have someone visit her at the desk throughout the day again, but that’s not the issue here. <br/><br/> Ryan starts to speak and pauses again, and she starts crying again, pulling her sweatshirt sleeves down around her hands to wipe at her face. <br/><br/> “Do you want me to come over?” Ryan asks, his voice unsure and hesitant, but she knows him well enough now to know that it’s not hesitance to help her, that he’s only unsure because it’s past midnight, and what would Roy think if a man pulled into the driveway to pick her up at this hour? <br/><br/> “Yeah,” she says, and she’s surprised, but it’s the furthest thing from a lie. “Yeah, I really do. But only if you don’t mind,” she adds quickly, but she can already hear more rustling and the sound of keys on the other end. <br/><br/> “I wouldn’t have offered if I did,” Ryan says, and it’s true- Ryan Howard is a lot of things, but needlessly self-sacrificial and caring aren’t really two of them. He doesn’t offer sympathy easily, and he wouldn’t have picked up in the first place if he wasn’t concerned. <br/><br/> “Thank you,” she says, sniffling, and Ryan quips a good bye before hanging up. She goes around the front of the house and waits, in her slippers and flannel shorts and an old  ratty hoody from high school, on the front steps. She’s still crying, every so slightly, and she’s not sure why. Three years ago, Roy had asked her to marry her and gave her a cluster diamond ring and she’d felt happier then she ever had, and she’s spent the rest of those three years begging Roy to speed the planning process along and set a date with her. <br/><br/> And now that the date is a week away, she’d give anything to go back to extending the engagement. <br/><br/> Ryan’s Equinox pulls up ten minutes later, the headlights off as he crawls up the driveway. Pam’s head feels a little clearer just having someone else there, present with her in the moment, and she shuffles up to the driver’s window. <br/><br/> “Hey,” she says, quietly, as Ryan rolls the window down, and he smiles gently at her. “Thank you,” she whispers, and Ryan unlocks the doors. <br/><br/> “Of course,” he says. “Now, get in. McDonald’s is 24 hours,” and her only answer to that is to dart around to the passenger door and climb in. <br/><br/> The ride is silent, but somehow the opposite of uncomfortable. Ryan’s got blink-182 playing on low volume, and though she only knows a few songs, it’s familiar enough that it eases her stomach knot ever so slightly. He’s drumming along on the steering wheel, and the rhythm is soothing, soft and grounding- not like when Roy drums along too enthusiastically to Nickelback on their way to the office every morning. <br/><br/> Ryan doesn’t ask her any questions, either, not even as they pull into the parking lot of the McDonald’s on Victor Street. They end up with matching Oreo McFlurries, seated across from each other in a booth by the window. There’s a surprising amount of people inside, especially for two AM, and Pam realizes belatedly that she’s still wearing her slippers. <br/><br/> “I can never wear these in my house again,” she whines, stretching them out and onto the booth next to Ryan. He chuckles, knocking her feet away with a swat of his napkin, and takes another scoop of his McFlurry. <br/><br/> He’s not dressed either, not really, a baggy hoody and basketball shorts that both look too big for his lithe frame, but he at least had the foresight to wear a pair of slides, and Pam spares another second to mourn the slippers she’s going to have to throw in the garbage can. Her tears have mostly stopped by now, but her voice is still watery, wavering in and out as she talks about nonsense with Ryan. <br/><br/> “Do you want to talk about it?” he finally asks, as her spoon scrapes against the bottom of the paper cup. She doesn’t do anything for a long moment, but she nods, eventually. <br/><br/> “I don’t think I can marry Roy,” she says, and as soon as it’s out there, out loud, in the open, the floodgates open again, and she’s crying silently into one of the thick paper napkins. Ryan doesn’t press her, doesn’t push her to answer or explain, and a detached part of Pam’s brain is grateful for that. She’s seen him when Kelly’s cried before, wailing and loud, seen him try to shush her with a look of mild annoyance, and she’s not sure what makes her different, but she’s glad for it, whatever it is. <br/><br/> “i just…” she says, once she’s composed herself a little bit, “I want to. But I don’t think I can.” <br/><br/> “Then I don’t think you really want to,” Ryan says, and his voice is pointed. Of course she does, though. She has to want to. She has to. She’s been engaged for three years, she’s lived with Roy for four years, she’s been dating him for nine. This is all she’s wanted, for as long as she can remember. Roy is comfortable. He’s a little too loud, too brash, and his burly personality can be overbearing, but he knows exactly how she likes her coffee and where she keeps her extra strength medicine for the bad headaches she gets every once in a while and what tea to make her when she’s having trouble sleeping. Roy is comfort and familiarity and routine, and she loves him for it and he loves her for it. <br/><br/> And she tells Ryan all of this, and he just listens, blue eyes wide and open- and, if she’s honest, a little judgmental, because even on his best days, Ryan can’t help that.<br/> “I love him,” Pam repeats, but it sounds a little desperate to her own ears, pleading to some unknown end that she’s not sure is there to hear it. Ryan scratches his head, eyes crinkled at the corners while he thinks. <br/><br/> “Pam, you can… you can love someone without being <em>in</em> love with them,” he says finally, and there’s a little flare of irritation in her chest. <br/><br/> “I know that,” she snaps, and she feels bad the second it leaves her mouth, because Ryan had done this for her, had driven her out here in the middle of the night to watch her cry into ice cream at a McDonald’s, of all places, and she thinks she owes him the bare minimum of kindness. <br/><br/> “Do you, though?” he asks, and it’s gentle, and she knows he’s really not trying to be rude or patronizing to her, not really, but the realization of what he’s saying washes over her before she can apologize for sniping at him. <br/><br/> Because she does love Roy- she has for a long time- but somewhere along the line, they lost the romance, the glue, the spark, the fire- whatever it is that all those romantic comedies need her to believe in to buy into love at first sight. The marriage that lays ahead of her with Roy is a disinterested one, one with arguments and predictability and easy evenings the go nowhere.<br/><br/> And that terrifies her, that she’s not in love with him, not ready to commit to the man she was willing to pledge the rest of her life to, and she feels queasy and sweaty and ready to cry again, all at once. <br/><br/> “I’m- I don’t think I’m in love with Roy,” she whispers, and she can’t meet Ryan’s eyes, so she stares at the logo on his hoodie, a greying white against faded black. “I’m not in love with Roy,” she repeats, and when she finally looks at Ryan’s face, his lips are quirked in the barest hint of a smile, his eyes sympathetic. <br/><br/> “I don’t think you are,” he affirms, and Pam can’t bring herself to say much else, and they sit in silence for a long few minutes. Ryan folds his napkin, tiny tight corners and edges, and she can’t do much else but watch him, absentmindedly, her mind spinning. <br/><br/> He flicks the napkin, now turned into a paper football, square at Pam’s forehead, and she yelps, a little, shocked out of her reverie, but she flings it back at him without much malice. <br/><br/> “What are you going to do?” he asks, his voice purely curious, and all Pam can do is shrug. She thinks she has to call off the wedding- she <em>knows</em> she does- but the hour is finally catching up with her, and her eyelids feel too heavy to keep propped open much longer. <br/><br/> Ryan drops her back off and she slides into the bed quietly. Roy hasn’t moved, but she can’t bring herself to press against him, and she stays on her own side. She’s out before she can think much more, and she’s grateful that it’s the weekend, that she doesn’t have to stroll into the office tomorrow morning with little sleep heavy thoughts. </p><p>—</p><p> She can’t bring herself to talk to Roy all weekend long- every time she starts to, he interrupts her or the commercial break ends, and though it’s grating that she can’t get a word in edgewise, she’s not exactly in any rush to have this conversation. <br/><br/> The truck ride on Monday morning is as normal as ever, Roy singing along to the Buckcherry CD he keeps saying is his ‘pump-up album,’ and the office is business as usual once she gets in. She’s the only one who had a life-altering weekend, she supposes, as Michael drums his fingers along her desk on his way to his office. <br/><br/> “Pam-el-a,” he says, sing-song and cheery, and she forces him a small smile. “Ooooh Pam-el-a.” <br/><br/> “That’s me,” she says, but he’s still blindly grinning at her, and she allows herself one long blink before finally asking him what he needs. <br/><br/> “Last week as a single woman!” Michael says, and Dwight’s behind him suddenly, nodding. <br/><br/> “Next Monday, you’ll be fresh from the marriage bed,” he supplies, and Phyllis shoots him a loud ‘Ew, Dwight,’ as she passes. <br/><br/> She’s not thrilled about it, either, but she’s learned the best thing to do with Dwight is ignore it, and she logs in to her computer for a reason to avoid their eyes. “Well, I mean, I’m engaged. I’m not really single,” she says, and Michael makes a noise that could either be indifference or disagreement as he peels away from the desk.  Ryan, who’d walked in as she’d said that, raises both eyebrows at her as he passes the reception desk, but she gives him a microscopic shake of her head, and he continues on to his own desk, shucking his coat on the way. <br/><br/> She makes it through the lunch before he asks her about it. They’re the only ones in the office kitchen, Pam waiting for her leftover casserole to heat up as Ryan pours himself another cup of coffee. <br/><br/> “You didn’t talk to him?” he asks, his voice nonchalant and even, and she shakes her head, her lips pressed together in a tight line, eyes trained on the microwave. Ryan takes a sip from his cup. <br/><br/> “Talk to who? About what?” Kevin asks, suddenly, emerging from the bathroom. The air feels like it’s being sucked out of the room, too harsh and fast for her to catch her breath. Kevin stands there, arms limp at his sides, and blinks at them expectantly, and it’s all Pam can do to not just up and leave the room. <br/><br/> “To Creed,” Ryan offers, “about the mung beans in his desk. They smell like death.” Kevin laughs, nodding slowly as he ambles back out to the bullpen. The door swings shut behind him, the shade clattering against the window, and Pam lets out a long, shaky breath she didn’t realize she was holding. <br/><br/> “Thank you,” she mumbles, and Ryan winks, but the cavalier attitude doesn’t spread to the rest of his face, and he motions to her with the cup. <br/><br/> “You’ll feel better once you do it,” he says. “Trust me. I’ve broken up with Kelly enough times to know that.” <br/><br/> Pam laughs, in spite of everything. “How’s that going, by the way? You guys are off again? On again?” <br/><br/> “Off, forever,” Ryan says darkly, and Pam laughs again, the sound airer than she’s felt all weekend. “I’m serious this time,” Ryan says, but he’s grinning too. “She keeps trying to make me jealous by flirting with Daryl, down in the warehouse, and I just can’t handle it anymore. It’s not interesting enough to me.” <br/><br/> “You can’t talk about women like that,” Pam says, but they’re both laughing again, and by the time she gets back to her desk after lunch, to check her voicemails, she feels like the brick in her stomach has broken up a little bit. </p><p>— </p><p> She can’t work up the courage to talk to Roy until after dinner, when she’s made a cup of herbal tea and the baseball game’s gone to commercial. He’s nursing his evening beer, and his teams winning, and it hits her full force that she just can’t do this the rest of her life. <br/><br/> “Roy,” she says, clearing her throat, and he hums at her, eyes still trained on the insurance commercial. “Roy,” she says, again, louder this time, and a little bit of urgency must bleed into her voice, because he turns his head this time to look at her. <br/><br/> It takes all her bravery, everything she can muster, but she sets her tea mug down and looks back at him. “I don’t want to get married,” she says, and her voice is not unkind, but it’s firm, and Roy just blinks at her. <br/><br/> For one horrible, short, second, she thinks he’s going to scream at her, but when he speaks, his voice has a ragged edge to it. “What?” <br/><br/> “I don’t want to get married,” she repeats, and it’s almost apologetic, and she has to steel herself, remind herself that this isn’t something she wants, not something she should compromise on. <br/><br/> Roy’s eyes are welling up, and he scrubs furiously at them, and it occurs to her that Roy might’ve seen nothing wrong in their relationship, might’ve been truly comfortable and happy with their dynamic. She wishes that she could’ve been as well. <br/><br/> “We’re- are you breaking up with me?” he forces out, his voice breaking halfway through, his words laced with pleading disbelief. All Pam can do is nod, because she knows if she speaks she’ll take all her words back, swallow them down past her throat again, and she can’t. She can’t let herself do that. <br/><br/> Roy starts crying, full on, and Pam moves to sit next him, comforting him, but she still doesn’t speak. She sleeps in the guest room that night. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. unlock the door, it'll make you feel better</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p> Ryan’s not sure, really, when it became an unspoken weekly thing, but by mid-July, him and Pam hit up Al’s every Thursday after work. It’s gotten to the point where he actually looks forward to it- and that frustrates him a little bit, because he’s spent a lot of time and effort fostering a Jack Kerouac-type personality, and he’s not sure how this standing appointment every week really fits into the beatnik persona. </p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> Ryan’s not sure, really, when it became an unspoken weekly thing, but by mid-July, him and Pam hit up Al’s every Thursday after work. It’s gotten to the point where he actually looks forward to it- and that frustrates him a little bit, because he’s spent a lot of time and effort fostering a Jack Kerouac-type personality, and he’s not sure how this standing appointment every week really fits into the beatnik persona. </p>
<p><br/> He’s also, if he’s honest, not entirely sure what beatnik means, but he’s not usually honest, so he mostly ignores that. </p>
<p><br/> In any case, he and Kelly are on-again this week, and she’s been <em>begging</em> him to go to that Mexican-fusion restaurant that opened up near Dixon City. Him and Pam don’t really talk much about their friendship, not in the office, at least not anymore than they talk about their  other friendships. He’s not really sure why their Thursdays stay so protected and secret, but he also knows he’s really not willing to give it up, and especially not for Kelly, not when they’ll probably be off-again next week. </p>
<p><br/> “Please, please, please, <em>please</em>, Ryan,” she says, and her hand are clasped together in that little prayer thing she does when she’s really trying to convince him of something. He glances briefly towards reception, where Pam’s obviously trying not to laugh, and of course she’s not going to be any help to him. </p>
<p><br/> “I told you, I’ve got plans tonight,” he says, non-committal, trying to fit his laptop in his bag. Kelly’s already taken that and run with it, twisting it for her own means. </p>
<p><br/> “Plans with me, right? Because we’re going to Rio Grande.”</p>
<p> <br/> “We went over this,” Ryan says, and he could probably help the exasperation that seeps into his voice, but he really doesn’t care anymore. “I’m taking you this weekend. Maybe. Tonight I’m hanging out with Rex.” </p>
<p><br/> “But you <em>always</em> get to see Rex,” Kelly’s whining, now, and that grates on his skin more than he remembered it doing last time. Maybe he’ll break up with her before the weekend. For good, this time. Probably. </p>
<p><br/> He finally gets his bag zipped up, looks right in her eyes, and shakes his head. “I see you every. Single. Weekday. I’m going out tonight, without you, and I’m meeting Rex.” </p>
<p><br/> She accepts it, though not without making a production about it, but it’s nothing Ryan hasn’t dealt with before. She has her coat on and is out the door within the next twenty minutes, which is probably a new personal best for her, and by then the office is empty except for him and Pam. </p>
<p><br/> She gives him a look, dipping her head to the door Kelly’s slammed shut behind her. “You should really be a little nicer to her, you know,” she says, but it’s not unkind. She says it at least once a week, usually more when Kelly’s trying her best to get them back together and Ryan’s trying his best to stick to his guns this time and stay broken up.</p>
<p><br/> “I know what I’m doing,” Ryan says, and it’s his route response. Pam used to roll her eyes at it, back before they were actually friends, back before they really knew how far this dynamic between him and Kelly was going to go. Now she just laughs, one of those real chuckles that starts low in her throat. “See you at six-thirty?” he asks, pulling on his coat. </p>
<p><br/> “I thought you had plans with Rex,” she teases. </p>
<p><br/> “Rex won’t mind if I cancel,” he shoots back, and he knows he’s smiling, but he’s not sure when it appeared on his face. That’s the annoying thing about being friends with Pam, honestly. He smiles a lot more, and that irritates him. He’s used to being moody at the office, begrudgingly accepting of whatever shenanigans Michael decides to pull, but he’s spent the last month or two genuinely happy. Even Dwight’s spectacles are easier to suffer now. </p>
<p><br/> He doesn’t quite know what to do with that. <br/> <br/>—</p>
<p><br/> He’s a little late by the time he gets to Al’s that night; they usually stop home to change, and he’d thought he’d have clean laundry, but somehow the knob for the dryer never got switched on and his clothes were still sitting there, soaking wet. He’d had to throw on one of his old college t-shirts over his jeans- it smelled a little too strongly of detergent when he’d pulled it from the depths of his dresser, but he really didn’t have too much of a choice, and there was no way he was putting his work button-down back on. </p>
<p><br/> Pam’s already there when he walks in, seated in their usual spot on the left side of the bar- and isn’t that a little weird, that they have a usual spot. Ryan tries pretty hard not to have a usual <em>anything,</em> and his stomach does a funny little twist. </p>
<p><br/> She’s got on a loose black t-shirt, one of those three-quarter sleeve ones, and her lighter-wash jeans, and Ryan doesn’t have the time to process why he knows that before she notices him and waves him over. </p>
<p><br/> “What are you wearing?” she asks him, and theres a note of incredulity to her voice, and he can’t help the mock offense his voice takes.</p>
<p> <br/> “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, and she’s already got a pint of the house’s craft IPA waiting on the bar for him, so he takes a long pull, avoiding her eyes. He knows there’s a hint of a grin on his face, just enough for her to know he’s playing along with her. </p>
<p><br/> “‘Modest Mouse 2003 Tour’?” she’s pulling at the hem of his shirt so she can read the faded graphics a little better, and he doesn’t even try to swat her hands way, not even in a playful way. He wouldn’t let Kelly do this, but Kelly would have some sort of ulterior motive, he’s sure, and so he lets Pam get away with it. “Where did you get this? Why do you wear this in public?” she’s laughing as she says it, and it’s infectious, and he can’t help the lilt that seeps into his voice. </p>
<p><br/> “This is the <em>height</em> of fashion, Pamela,” he says. </p>
<p> “For college students. Not for adults with jobs and apartments.” </p>
<p><br/> “I’ll have you know, I spent twenty-three of my last thirty dollars on this shirt.” </p>
<p><br/> “That makes it so much worse,” she cries, but she’s still laughing, and he flicks once at her nose, grinning back. </p>
<p><br/> “Probably,” he concedes, waving the bartender over. “What’re you drinking? Vodka soda?” </p>
<p><br/> “Vodka cranberry,” she says, mock-haughtily. </p>
<p><br/> “Oh? Don’t get too crazy there, Beesly,” he chides, and she smacks his arm a little bit as Mark finally wanders over. He buys her another round, and she argues with him, like she always does, which makes her too busy to notice him slipping his card to Mark to cover the whole tab, like he always does. </p>
<p><br/> She doesn’t even ask about Kelly until it’s almost eight, which Ryan thinks is a new record, because when they’re on-again, she’s usually the first topic of conversation right out the gate. He almost prefers when they’re off-again, just so he doesn’t have to waste his breath explaining anything. </p>
<p><br/> “She really likes you, you know,” Pam says sagely, nodding her head one too many times. Ryan sighs heavily, wishing his glass was more full so he had more excuses to drink from it. </p>
<p><br/> “Yeah, I know,” he says. “Trust me.” </p>
<p><br/> “I can’t believe you guys are back together.” </p>
<p><br/> “It won’t last long,” he says, and she squints her eyes. </p>
<p><br/> “Why even bother getting back together?” she asks, and she’s stirring her drink, probably in some effort to look nonchalant about it, but Ryan’s not an idiot, no matter what he pretends to be. </p>
<p><br/> He doesn’t have an answer for her, though, and he shrugs, draining his glass to avoid having to say anything. Pam doesn’t push, which always surprises him- his other friends needle him constantly about Kelly, and Kelly herself can never just let a single thing be.  </p>
<p><br/> “Wanna shoot pool?” he asks, once he’s got another drink, and Pam gives him a look, one of those looks where he knows this conversation isn’t over, but Pam’s going to let him drop it for now.  </p>
<p><br/> Still, she nods, and she starts her version of trash talk, which is really just her saying she’s gonna beat him with varying degrees of intensity. She doesn’t, of course- loses miserably all three games they play- but it’s fun all the same, both of them bickering back and forth, no bite in either of their voices. </p>
<p><br/> He picks up the tab, again, and she puts up a fight, again. It’s a cooler outside then it was when they came in, and by the time they arrive at her car she’s shivering, a little bit. He wishes, for a second, he had a sweatshirt to give her, but the thoughts gone immediately, shoved back into one of the dusty boxes he keeps in the recesses of his brain. </p>
<p><br/> “Drive safe, yeah?” he says. </p>
<p><br/> “You too, Temp,” she says, and he taps twice on the hood of her car she pulls out of the space. He checks his phone for the first time all night once he’s in his own car. He’s got messages upon messages from Kelly, as well as a few voicemails. He sends her a quick goodnight message, as well as a calendar invite to that stupid restaurant for Saturday evening, and chucks it into the passenger seat without waiting for a response. </p>
<p><br/> It buzzes intermittently the entire way home, but he plugs it in to charge without looking at any of her responses. </p>
<p>—</p>
<p> Him and Kelly are surprisingly still together by Tuesday, but with the way she’s constantly sending him emails and IMs from her desk in the annex, he’s not sure they’re gonna make it through the end of the work day. </p>
<p><br/> “Can’t you shut that off?” Dwight snaps as a particular long string of notifications bleeps through his monitor. </p>
<p><br/> “I wish I could,” he mutters, and it comes out darker then he means it to. Dwight pauses, throwing a conspiratorial look over his shoulder before leaning in. </p>
<p><br/> “Do you need help… <em>disposing</em> of the problem?” he says, and his thin eyebrows are disappearing past the lank hair that hangs over onto his forehead. Ryan sighs, allows himself to consider, for the briefest of seconds, encouraging Dwight, and then firmly locks that box. </p>
<p><br/> “No,” he says, and he keeps his voice as flat and disinterested as possible. Dwight scoffs, leaning back to his own desk and clattering away on his keyboard. There’s a cough to his right, just barely audible over Dwight humming Metallica to himself, and he glances to see Pam waving him towards the reception desk. </p>
<p><br/> He goes, against his better judgement, saving his email as a draft. “What’s up?” he asks, and he pokes around through the tin of jellybeans on her desk, shoving all the red ones out of the way. </p>
<p><br/> “Did Dwight just ask you if you wanted to be a part of a scheme?” she asks, and her eyes are bright, lit up in a way that Ryan hasn’t really seen too often since she called off her wedding.</p>
<p> <br/> “Yeah, he wanted to like, murder Kelly or something, I don’t know,” he says, and he fishes out a pale yellow jellybean and pops it into his mouth. “I didn’t want to know the details.” </p>
<p><br/> “You have to!” Pam presses, and when he raises his eyebrows at her, she gives him such a disappointed look that he’s not sure to do with the wash of guilt that settles across him. “If Dwight asks you if you want to be part of any of his plots, you have to say yes. Always.” </p>
<p><br/> “W- why?” he stutters, and he’s laughing a little bit. There’s an intensity to this that he didn’t expect, and he covers it with pulling out another jellybean. Pineapple, he thinks they are. They’re good. Tangy. </p>
<p><br/> “Jim taught me. You always, always, <em>always</em> say yes if Dwight asks you if you want to do something.” </p>
<p><br/> “Well, Jim’s gone,” he reminds her, and her face falls the tiniest bit, which wasn’t his intention. He’s scrambling, suddenly, and he rolls the candy around in his mouth, trying to patch it up. She’d lit up with the idea of a Dwight scheme, and the lanky asshole had been constantly messing with him. Maybe there’s a way to get Kelly off his back and keep Pam entertained hidden in there somewhere. </p>
<p><br/> “Yeah, I know, I just- I thought we could like, mess with him. Or something,” she says, and then she wiggles her head a little bit, the way she does when she’s embarrassed about something that she wishes she hadn’t said. “Just. Forget it. It’s fine.” </p>
<p><br/> “What would he have done?” Ryan finds himself asking, and he’s not meeting her eyes. He needs it to come out casually, like it doesn’t really matter much to him either way. The dish is almost all only red candies by now, and he has to root his finger down to the bottom to get to the yellow ones. </p>
<p><br/> “Oh,” Pam says, and it’s airy but surprised. “Um. Okay, well, one time we signed him up for CIA in training program that doesn’t exist and- it sounds stupid, when you say it like that, but-“ </p>
<p><br/> “We’re not doing that,” he laughs, cutting her off. She giggles, once, and she still looks a little nervous, but she picks up on what he’s trying to say, that he’s up for messing with Dwight. She offers up a few more explanations to him, successful Halpert pranks from the past few years, but none of them really sound like something he cares enough to do. </p>
<p><br/> They’re all a lot of effort, he realizes, and he wonders how little work Halpert was doing if he was putting this much time into dicking around at Dwight’s expense. </p>
<p><br/> “We could just, like, share his screen with Kelly,” Ryan says finally. He’s slumped against the countertop, rapidly becoming disinterested with the whole idea, but Pam’s face when he offers that up almost makes it worth it. </p>
<p><br/> “What do you mean?” </p>
<p><br/> “You know, screen share. IT departments do it all the time, it projects his screen onto her computer. Both of them have control of the mouse, either one can click things. It’ll be madness, he won’t be able to fix it.” And Kelly won’t be able to keep messaging him, he thinks, privately. His computer’s been blipping non stop through their whole conversation, and it’s really starting to drive him bananas. </p>
<p><br/> Pam brightens immediately, laughing into her palm. “We have to,” she says, firmly, and then suddenly she’s waving Dwight over to the reception desk, and Ryan figures that’s his cue. <br/> It’s not hard, really, to share Dwight’s screen to Kelly’s computer- the desktops are all on a shared network, and he’s peered over the shoulders of enough of the IT guys to have gotten one of their administrator log-ins. </p>
<p><br/> Kelly’s storming out the annex and into the bullpen barely three seconds after he’s sat back down in his own seat, mid-sentence into a rant abut how her computer’s broken. It takes a surprising amount of time for them to figure out it’s Dwight’s screen that’s appeared on it, and pretty soon the entire office is trying to help fix it. Kevin keeps shouting ideas that make less than zero sense, and Ryan’s encouraging them to try each and every one. </p>
<p><br/> He’s surprised by how much fun he’s having, honestly, and it takes a lot of effort not to laugh every time Pam backs him up on supporting Kevin’s ideas. By the time the clock ticks to five, the desktops are still mirrored, and Dwight finally switches off the computer in a burst of annoyance and marches out the door. The rest of the office mills out slowly after him, Michael making some grand show about how he’s going to call IT tomorrow and force them fix it- something about throwing his weight around and showing the desktop who’s boss. </p>
<p> Pam hangs back to walk out its him, bumping her shoulder against his as they wait for the elevator to come back up. “That was a good idea,” she says. “Jim wouldn’t have thought of that.” </p>
<p><br/> And it irritates Ryan a little, to be compared to Halpert, and he doesn’t know why. He pushes it down, instead, shrugging. “I’m a little bit fun,” he says, instead, and Pam laughs. </p>
<p><br/> “A little,” she concedes, like she doesn’t already know that he is, outside of the office. Like she doesn’t spend hours every Thursday with him at Al’s, playing pool, or forcing Mark to do a karaoke night, or getting the entire bar to do a rendition of Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You.” </p>
<p><br/> He just bumps her shoulder back, grazing it against his in lieu of a response. </p>
<p><br/> “<em>Ryan</em>!” Kelly’s crowing down the hallway suddenly, rushing towards them at the elevator with her jacket barely hanging off one arm. He stops himself from groaning outwardly, but he knows the smile slides off his face as she gets closer. He thought she’d left already. </p>
<p><br/> “Hey,” he says, and he lets her kiss him, but only on his cheek. She’s already deep into some conversation he wasn’t privy to the beginning of- not like he would’ve paid attention, anyway- and he spends the entire elevator ride down glancing at Pam, begging her with his eyes to save him from this. </p>
<p><br/> She understands, he knows she does, can tell from the way her eyes are all lit up, but she doesn’t even try to help him, just bids them good bye in the parking lot and climbs into her Toyota. Kelly’s still going on and on about whatever it is she’s saying, something about Usher maybe? Jessica Alba? He doesn’t really care enough to try and find out, just slips away in the middle of a sentence with a quick goodbye kiss and a promise to call her later. </p>
<p><br/> He doesn’t, and and she doesn’t let him forget it the next day. </p>
<p>— </p>
<p> “-I’m just saying, I think it’s a mistake,” Pam says it around an ice cube, and that alone should irritate Ryan, but like a lot of things about her, it somehow doesn’t. </p>
<p><br/> “I’m not quite sure what you mean,” he says, in a tone that tells her he knows exactly what she means, and she’s giggling as he takes another sip of his pint. They’re at Al’s again, on the last Thursday of July, and it’s probably too late for them to still be out, but Michael’s given them all a three-day weekend as he goes on some business conference. Dwight’s gone with him too, thank god, and those three things were enough to warrant a little extra celebration.</p>
<p><br/> “Ryan Howard,” she says, because of course she’s going to play into it, even though she knows what he’s doing. He grins at her, through the lip of his glass, and she fakes a scoff at him. “Do not make me Beesley you,” she warns, and he bubbles a laugh into his glass, and it’s that that makes her break, too. She’d had a long day, fielding calls back and forth between Jan and Wallace and Michael, and he’s spent the last fifteen minutes trying to cheer her up, inventing hypotheticals he needs advice on, all of them mirroring Michael’s life a little too closely.  </p>
<p><br/> “Well, I wouldn’t expect you to understand the intricacies of condo ownership,” Ryan says, sniffing. “Dating your real estate agent is only one of the many benefits.” </p>
<p><br/> “Oh, I’m sure,” Pam says, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly. “Take a leaf right out of Michael Scott’s book, because it always works out so well for him.”  </p>
<p> <br/> She’s grinning now, too bright for the dim interior of the bar, and he’s taking this a win, dropping the condo thing. “You got any plans for the long weekend?” he asks, and he’s not sure what answer he’s hoping for- him and Kelly are off-again, finally, and he’s considering a Playstation marathon on his cruddy couch- but Pam’s shaking her head before the questions’ fully left his mouth. </p>
<p><br/> “Negatory,” she says. “Turns out, when your whole social life is your boyfriend of nine years, theres not much to do if you break up with him.” </p>
<p><br/> She doesn’t talk about the break up much, and he tries not to press her when she does offer details- he tells himself it’s mostly because he doesn’t care enough, but even he knows that’s a blatant lie. It’s not the first time she’s mentioned being lonely, though, and Ryan can hear the words leaving his mouth before he’s fully registered that he’s saying them. </p>
<p><br/> “My friends Rex and Jared are having this thing on Saturday night, you should stop by,” he says, and it sounds horribly, forcibly, casual, even to his own ears, and it takes all his concentration to keep his face from visibly wincing. </p>
<p><br/> Pam sits up a little, though, and her hand starts tucking hair behind her ears even though it hasn’t fallen forward, and he hates how he knows that that means she’s matching his level of indifference. “Yeah?” she asks. </p>
<p><br/> “Yeah,” Ryan says, and suddenly all he wants is for her to be there Saturday night. He can already see how easily she’d fit in, how she’d be able to give Jared’s snide comments right back to him, how she could probably go shot for shot with Derek at beer pong. </p>
<p><br/> She nods, pressing her lips together like she’s trying to keep from smiling too wide. “Alright, yeah. I’ll go.” </p>
<p><br/> Ryan’s head feels a little bit too light, but he can tell he’s grinning, so he drains the last of his beer and slides the glass away from him. “Cool. Pool?” he says, and this time it’s not a distraction technique, isn’t a way for him to avoid a conversation he doesn’t want to have. </p>
<p><br/> He still kicks Pam’s ass, because he can never let someone else beat him, but maybe he does go a little easier on her, missing one or two shots that really weren’t that difficult. He’d never tell her that, not in a million years, but somehow he thinks she knows anyway. <br/> <br/>—<br/> <br/> Saturday night rolls around both too slowly and too quickly, and he finds himself at Rex and Jared’s in what was his go-to for parties while in college; he’s got on a black long sleeve, his favorite one with the blue chest stripes, and his black jeans and Vans are just bordering on the edge of looking too young on him. He thinks he can get maybe six more months out of it before he has to buy, like, Nikes or something, but it works, for now. </p>
<p><br/> Rex still hasn’t moved past his college days, not by a long shot, sporting the same haircut he’s had since nineteen, but Jared’s at least tried to spruce the party up a little bit- there’s clear plastic cups instead of the red solos, which is a win, Ryan supposes. A minor one. </p>
<p><br/> “Kelly coming tonight?” Jared asks. He’s fiddling around with the stereo system, trying to find the max volume level he can reach while still allowing people to talk comfortably, which Ryan’s grateful for. He’s had enough blow out parties, he thinks, and he doesn’t want this one to be like their frat days. </p>
<p><br/> “Nah, we’re not together,” he says, and Jared pauses for a quick minute to glance at him over his shoulder. “For real, this time,” Ryan affirms, and Jared still doesn’t say anything, just fiddles with the volume knob a little bit. </p>
<p><br/> “Flying solo tonight, then? Want me to wingman?” </p>
<p><br/> “Nah, Pam’s coming,” Ryan says, and the minute it leaves his mouth he wants to take it back, restructure the way he said that. He didn’t mean it <em>like that</em>, she’s just a friend, he’s not looking to get with her or anything, but he knows if he tries to say any of that, it’s going to fall out of his mouth wrong again and Jared’ll say something annoying and pretentious like ‘methinks the Lady doth protest too much.’ God, he really hates Jared sometimes. </p>
<p><br/> Rex is the one that saves him, surprisingly, bursting into the kitchen through the back door, clicking his grill tongs together incessantly. “Burgers!” he shouts, and Ryan digs through their fridge to pull out the patties. Jared drops the conversation, which he’s grateful for, and he follows Rex out to the patio, instead. </p>
<p><br/> The party’s in full swing twenty minutes later, the backyard strung with those Wal-Mart fairy lights and the alt-rock playlist finally settled on a pleasant volume. If Ryan closes his eyes, he can almost pretend he’s twenty again, at Penn State. </p>
<p><br/> “Ryan!” Rex calls, breaking into Ryan’s faux-nostalgia, and he cracks an eye open to see Rex on the patio, waving at him with Pam by his side.</p>
<p><br/> Theoretically, he knew Pam was coming, but to see her here, sharing this space with him, strikes him a way that he doesn’t really have a word for. It settles into his chest in a way he supposes is comforting, and, like he usually does with Pam, he finds himself grinning before he can help it. </p>
<p><br/> “Hey!” he calls, and excuses himself from his conversation with Jared’s girlfriend and sister and almost bounds over to her. “You made it!”</p>
<p><br/> “I made it!” she repeats, and he pulls her in for a hug, and- well, that’s new. He doesn’t avoid touching her, not really, but he’s never really made an effort to hug her, either. She’s warm, not too much shorter than he is, and her hair tickles his cheek a little bit as she pulls away. </p>
<p><br/> She looks good tonight- not that she ever looks bad- with her hair fully down and curled into what he thinks are beachy waves. He’s picked up a few fashion terms from Kelly’s ramblings. Her jeans are the high-waisted pair she very rarely wears, and her sweater is one of those light, summery ones, draped loosely around her frame. She looks really good, actually, and Ryan’s suddenly self conscious about his Vans again. Which she immediately points out, because of course she does. </p>
<p><br/> “Nice shoes,” she snickers, bumping her Keds against the toe his left sneaker, and he fakes a dramatic sigh. </p>
<p><br/> “How many times do I have to tell you, I am ahead of the fashion curve,” he insists, and she nods like she’s invested in what he’s saying, but he knows her well enough now to know she’s just gearing up for what she thinks’ll be a very good burn. </p>
<p><br/> “Right, right. So that just makes you unfashionable, then?” she asks, and she says it with such sincerity that Ryan can’t help the snort that comes out. </p>
<p><br/> “Alright, I get it, I look like I’m trying to recapture my youth. Whatever,” he says, and he gestures towards the back door. “Let’s get you a drink.” </p>
<p><br/> He doesn’t miss the look Rex gives him as they slip inside the house, but he does do his best to ignore it. It’s really not his intention here, honestly, and he’s at least grateful that Pam doesn’t seem to pick up on whatever weird vibes his friends keep trying throw off. </p>
<p><br/> She gets along perfectly with them, just like he knew she would. She joins in with Jared when the conversation inevitably turns to ribbing on Ryan, and Ryan lets her. The comments stick less on his skin when she says them, even though he knows Jared’s not really intending to be mean, either, but somehow the blows feel lessened when she’s there. </p>
<p><br/> Derek, as promised, brings his beer pong table along, and Pam ends up being the one to convince Ryan to play. Ryan’s never been a great shot, not really, and Pam has to carry the team, but when they win she lets out a whoop and hugs him tightly like he sunk the winning shot (he didn’t, but it’s nice of her to pretend like he helped even a little bit). </p>
<p><br/> It’s one of those parties that doesn’t really ever get crazy but also never really winds down, just stays at that slightly buzzed level all night long. It’s almost one thirty by the time he has to force himself to leave, and he offers to walk Pam to her car. She’s parked a little ways up the street, right behind his own Equinox. She’s leaning against him as they walk, and after a brief moment, he throws an arm around her shoulder, something he can convince himself is friendly. </p>
<p><br/> He wants to say something when they reach her car, but he can’t figure out exactly what it is or how to get it out of his mouth, so he makes some comment instead, something sarcastic that he’s not even sure was worth the life seconds it took to say. Pam laughs, though, and she climbs into her car, rolling her window down as she starts it. “Thanks for inviting me,” she says, and it’s so sincere, so out of the ordinary of their dry back-and-forth, that it takes Ryan by an uncomfortable surprise. </p>
<p><br/> “Yeah,” he says, “of course. Anytime,” and he means that, too, is more genuine with that statement than he’s been with anything all week long. He taps the roof, twice, and she pulls out and down the road, and Ryan’s not sure how long he stands there after her car disappears.</p>
<p><br/> His apartment’s empty when he gets home, but it’s forgiving, and he watches the TVGuide channel mindlessly for longer than he wants to admit. Maybe he should’ve kissed her, he thinks, before he nods off, sprawled out on his couch. He wonders if she would’ve let him. </p>
<p><br/> He would’ve let her, he knows, if she’d tried to kiss him. </p>
<p><br/>—</p>
<p> The break room is blissfully empty when Ryan finally gets a chance to take his lunch, and he slides in to the chair in the corner with his book and his sandwich. A half-hour of peace is exactly what he needs right now, and he’s surprisingly invested in this Donna Tartt book he’d picked up last week. </p>
<p><br/> He’s had a long day, and it’s only barely twelve-thirty- this client he inherited from Jim is being obscenely difficult about re-ordering, to the point where Ryan’s sure he has to be being purposely obtuse about the whole thing- and all he wants to do is eat his sad little turkey sandwich and read about pretentious college kids in Vermont. </p>
<p><br/> So of <em>course</em> Kelly has to decide to join him, yammering on and on in his ear about whatever dumb US Weekly article she skimmed that morning. He’s doing his literal best to ignore her, staring resolutely at the pages of his book, even as he can’t focus on a singular word. He’s not even doing his usual routine of ‘yeah… wow… mhmm’ in her pauses, and she’s still there, talking endlessly. </p>
<p><br/> He’s not really sure if they’re on-again right now, either- he guesses they must be, because when they’re off she’s usually spending all her breath trying to convince him to get back together. </p>
<p><br/> She still hasn’t finished talking by the time his lunch is over, and the annoyance rolling around in his gut at his lunch being sabotaged is so strong that he slams the book on the table, crossing his arms. </p>
<p><br/> “Are you done,” he says flatly, and it’s a testament to their more than likely unhealthy relationship that Kelly’s not even phased by his outburst. </p>
<p><br/> “I’m so glad you asked, because I’m not,” she says, and then she starts in on something about Tom Cruise, and then it’s finally just too much for him. He’s got no words left to say to her, no energy left to expend on her, and he packs his lunch up and heads back to his desk without saying anything. </p>
<p><br/> She follows him, still chattering, something else about Nicole Kidman, and she stays there for another half hour before announcing that she has to get back to work, but it’s been so nice talking to him, she can’t wait for their dinner date later (the existence of which is news to Ryan), and then she’s skipping back into the annex. The bullpen is silent for a good, solid, minute after she’s gone, broken only by Stanley. </p>
<p><br/> “That girl talks too damn much,” he grumbles, and then he’s silent again, pecking away slowly at his keyboard. Ryan drops his head into his hands, defeat rushing over him, terrified that he’s doomed to this for the rest of his life. Kelly’s like some sort of horrible addiction with him, and no matter how many times he tells himself, and her, that they’re over, for real this time, they end up pulled back together again, kicking and screaming against each other. </p>
<p><br/> “Hey,” Pam says softly, and Ryan tilts his head a little towards her, enough to show that he’s listening. “Come here,” she says, and it’s equally as gentle, and Ryan groans a little into his elbow, but he drags himself over to the reception desk all the same. He doesn’t even have the willpower to dig through her candy dish- it’s jolly ranchers this time, after Angela complained about the jellybeans getting stepped on and smeared into gooey messes on the carpet- just crumples himself against the counter, head propped up on one hand as he stares dismally at her. </p>
<p><br/> “What,” he says, and it’s as flat as he can make it without being overtly rude. Pam gives him one of those compassionate smiles, one of the ones she uses sometimes with Michael when he’s being particularly asinine and he’s reached a level that’s disgustingly vulnerable. He’s started calling them her ‘Oh… Michael,’ smiles, just to himself, and he hates that he does that, but he hates even more that she’s using one on him right now. </p>
<p><br/> “Let’s get dinner tonight, or something,” she says.</p>
<p><br/> “Drinks,” he grunts, and she shakes her head the tiniest bit. </p>
<p><br/> “Obviously, but, like, with food. You need appetizers. More than bar peanuts,” and Ryan can’t argue with her on that, so he rolls his eyes upward for a long, long moment before he agrees, and he slumps himself back over his desk and prods away at his work. </p>
<p><br/> Kelly gloms on to him exactly at five-oh-one, and he doesn’t even have the energy to tell her to get lost, just yanks his arm away from her and glances at Pam, pleading with every cell in his body for her help. Pam, for whatever reason, can tell this isn’t his usual ‘save me’ glance, that he just can’t deal with Kelly anymore, not today, and she calls Kelly towards her instead, asking her something about the Kardashians. </p>
<p><br/> Ryan slips out, to his car, and drives to a lot down the street, somewhere Kelly won’t think to look for him. He shuts his phone off, preemptive against the onslaught of calls he knows he’s gonna get, and to his complete surprise, starts to cry. It’s a quiet cry, no heaving sobs or dramatic wheezes, but there’s tears trickling steadily down out of his eyes. He doesn’t make any sort of effort to wipe them way until there’s a tap at his window. Pam’s there, waving at him, and he rolls it down, swiping at face with the heel of his hand. </p>
<p><br/> “What’s up,” he says, and his voice is hoarse enough that he has to clear his throat it get it out properly. </p>
<p><br/> “You’re not okay,” she says, and Ryan has to laugh at the bluntness of it all, because otherwise he’s afraid he’ll start crying again. </p>
<p><br/> “I’m not,” he agrees, and she laughs along with him, just barely. She nods towards he car, parked along the street just outside the lot, and he means to ask her how she knew to find him here, but she’s already in the middle of her own question and Ryan can’t bring himself to interrupt. “C’mon,” she says, “You wanted to get drinks? There’s a new tavern almost towards Carbondale, we can get some burgers or something, if you want?” </p>
<p><br/> Ryan knows she’s leaving him an out, giving him the option to go home instead, heat up some lasagna or whatever else he has rotting in his fridge, and he almost takes it. The thought of being out in public is too pressing, too hard for a second, but it passes almost immediately. </p>
<p><br/> “Yeah, actually, that sounds- that sounds great,” he says. He’s got a change of clothes in the backseat, and swaps his button up and tie and slacks for a plain black t-shirt and jeans while Pam keeps watch outside his car. </p>
<p><br/> He does the same for her, and she changes surprisingly quickly into a pair of leggings and an oversized shirt. He doesn’t even put up a fight when she offers to drive them, just slides into her passenger seat. He does fiddle around with the radio, though, because he can’t listen to whatever station she has it set to. The alt-rock station has the Silversun Pickups going, and he settles on that, tapping along on the dashboard to the beat. </p>
<p><br/> Pam knows the words, which is just enough to bring him out of his funk a little, and he cranks it up as she rolls the windows down, and then they’re screaming ‘Lazy Eye’ at the passing cars and he feels light for the first time that day. </p>
<p><br/> She leaves it on the alt-rock station all the way to Carbondale, and she knows quite a few of the songs- Halpert must’ve had a hand in this, he’s sure, but for once he’s not complaining about something Gigantor’s done. Or maybe this is all Pam, and he’s gauged her wrong- maybe she likes it all on her own volition. </p>
<p><br/> The tavern is nice, fully committed to a homey, fireside aesthetic without being gaudy, and the waitress reads off an impressive list of craft beer. Pam doesn’t ask him about anything to do with Kelly until their food is set down in front of them, steam still rising off the shoestring fries on their plates. </p>
<p><br/> “I know you already know this,” she starts, and he wants to stop her right there, because he doesn’t want to hear where this is going, but he can’t bring himself to cut her off. The fish fry in front of him is a godsend compared to his shitty lunch, and he focuses on that instead, squeezing the lemon wedge with maybe a little more force than necessary. “You need  to break up with her. For good.” </p>
<p><br/> Her voice is gentle, and she’s right, he does already know that, but hearing it from her really drives it home in a way that repeating it to himself constantly didn’t. </p>
<p><br/> “You try breaking up with Kelly,” he challenges, and he’s bitching, but he can’t entirely bring himself to care. </p>
<p><br/> “I broke off my wedding four days before it happened, to a guy I’d been with for nine years,” she reminds him, and the realization of it all smarts a little- he’s been doing this thing with Kelly for what, a year and a half? Maybe two? Compared to what Pam had had to do, he feels like an idiot, like a child who can’t resist cramming his hand in the cookie jar. </p>
<p> “You’re not happy, Ryan, and it’s not fair to her to let her keep thinking she has a a chance to make it work. And,” she cuts him off before he can fully interrupt, and he snaps his mouth shut, slouching down in the booth. “and, it’s not fair to you, either. You need to get out of this before it gets to be too much of an issue.”  </p>
<p><br/> She’s right, obviously, and Ryan is more annoyed that he needed someone else to tell him what he already knew then he is at anything else. He shoves some of his dinner in his mouth so he doesn’t have to respond right away. </p>
<p><br/> Pam doesn’t push him, doesn’t press him, doesn’t even stare at him to wait for answer, just lets him find his own words, on his own time, and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to express how grateful he is for those few moments. </p>
<p><br/> “How?” is all he can say, once he’s drained half his beer, and she doesn’t really have an answer for him, but she still tries. They stay much later than they should, past dessert, to the point where Pam actually has to order a cup of tea. She helps him put together a little speech, something that ends this thing with Kelly on a note of finality he hasn’t been able to before. It’s nicer to Kelly then it would’ve been had he written it himself, but he can’t argue that she’s undeserving of the kindness- if anything, she probably deserves a lot more kindness from him then he’s been willing to give her. </p>
<p><br/> And the thing is, it works. He talks to her after work the next day, and she takes it well- which, for Kelly, means a lot of crying and hysterics and accusations, but it’s not even their worst break up. She accepts it, allows him to finally, finally end it, and she only tries to get back together for about two weeks before giving up. </p>
<p><br/> He’s free by mid-August, truly free for the first time in too long, and when he and Pam meet at Al’s that Thursday, Mark gives him a few pints on the house. A few of the regulars, some of their bar buddies who’ve heard more of the Kelly saga than they’ve probably wanted to, congratulate him and buy him rounds like he’s announced he’s having a baby. Sal even gives him a cigar. </p>
<p><br/> He wonders what this means for him and Pam, as he puffs on it out front with Sal. The thought shocks him, though less so than he thinks it should, and he’s contemplating what exactly he’s supposed to be feeling towards her when she appears from inside, two plastic cups of beers in her hands. </p>
<p><br/> He guesses that it doesn’t matter, not tonight, and he lets it fall away, pulling the rug over it in his mind like it’s a spill he’ll get to dealing with later. <br/> <br/>— </p>
<p> Phyllis’s wedding sneaks up on him, and he’s left scrambling to find an appropriate suit two days before. All of his work ones have a funk to them, and he spends maybe a little too much time trying to remember when he last took them to the dry cleaners, before finally giving in and driving himself over to the Steamtown Mall at seven-thirty at night to spend what he’s sure’ll be way too much money at Macy’s. </p>
<p><br/> The sales associate won’t leave him alone- asks him about nine times if he has a tie to match to the dress shirt he’s holding- and he <em>knows</em> there’s a cheaper option than this Kenneth Cole shit he’s resigned himself to, he just can’t find it anywhere in his size. He almost throws it all in the dressing room bin after the associate- Jackson, his name tag says- asks him, too cheerily, if he’s still finding everything okay. Phyllis won’t miss him if he’s not there, he’s sure, it’s not like they’re particularly close or anything. </p>
<p><br/> He buys it, though, and it hangs on the back of his bathroom door for two days, even though he knows that the shower steam really doesn’t get the wrinkles out as well as an iron will. </p>
<p><br/> He’s still smoothing a few creases out of the sides as he pulls up to the church on Saturday. It’s a beautiful day, honestly, with the kind of bright sun that warms you down to your bones without making you sweat. The air is just starting to get the barest little hints of autumn chill in them, and he’s not uncomfortable with his suit jacket on. </p>
<p><br/> Michael is, predictably, causing a scene on the church steps, fighting with the photographer and trying to sneak into as many of the wedding party photos as he can. He allows himself one small second of wishing he and Kelly were still together, just so could have someone to witness it with, joke about it to, but he shuts that door immediately. He’s happier without her, honestly, and from the way she’s hanging off Darryl’s arm, he thinks she might be too. </p>
<p><br/> Pam comes up behind a few moments later, her hair pinned loosely out of her face. Her dress is a deep, chocolate satin, and it looks so nice against her skin that Ryan’s brain short circuits for a moment. She’s frowning at the steps, watching Michael try to hide behind the groomsmen. </p>
<p><br/> “Oh, Michael,” she mumbles, and it’s that pitying voice, the one she uses when she’s trying to be gentle with him. Ryan’s brain still isn’t quite back online, and he just nods along jerkily.</p>
<p> <br/> “Yeah, uh- yeah,” he says, and he kicks at a loose stone on the pavement. “He’s been at this for like, ten minutes now.” </p>
<p><br/> She frowns a little deeper, like she always does when Michael’s doing something particularly childish, something that really drives home how lonely and desperate for any sort of genuine affection he is. Ryan usually just finds it cloying and grating, but Pam’s always been better than he is- probably always will be- and he thinks she’s truly sympathetic to Michael. </p>
<p><br/> The wedding is as he expected, with Phyllis and Bob exchanging heartfelt, if not slightly sappy vows. Michael forces himself at the altar between two of the groomsmen, and he’s pretty sure he sees Creed swap some gift cards around while everyone’s busy with the ceremony.</p>
<p><br/> The reception is sadly a lot of the same, ending with Bob physically tossing Michael out of the banquet room after an especially awkward performance during the speeches. The food is good, though, and he realizes maybe halfway through dinner that a lot of it seems strikingly similar to what he vaguely remembers from Pam’s wedding plans. </p>
<p><br/> Kevin and Scrantonicity start up their Police covers as the dinner winds to a close, and Ryan can see Roy hovering around near where Pam’s seated, so he drops into the seat next to her, pointing to the display board set up at the entrance to the hall. </p>
<p><br/> “That was what your invitation looked like, wasn’t it?” he asks. </p>
<p><br/> “This entire wedding is what mine looked like, right down to the flowers,” she points out, gesturing to the bouquet in the middle of the table. Ryan winces, because that has to sting quite a bit, but she’s taking it all in good humor. “Roy got me those color flowers for prom.” </p>
<p><br/> “He looks like he’s gearing up to ask you for a prom dance,” Ryan says, and he dips his head back towards where Anderson’s still pacing, slightly behind them, and Pam sighs. </p>
<p><br/> “He’s- he’s really nice, he is,” she says, and Ryan knows there’s a ‘but’ hanging there, and that’s enough for him. He doesn’t need to know what it is, what it means, what the hang up is- just knowing it exists is enough for him, and he stands, offering his hand out to her. </p>
<p><br/> “You wanna dance?” he asks, and he curses his timing a little bit, because all of a sudden the music shifts to a slower song. Not that he would mind slow dancing with Pam- quite the opposite, honestly- but the idea of it, here, in public, at Phyllis’ wedding, is suddenly a lot- </p>
<p><br/> -but she’s taking his hand, and the contact shocks his system a little bit, brings him out of the spiral he was just about to dive head first into. He leads them out onto the dance floor and pulls her close, holding her waist and her hand gently- not that he’s afraid of breaking her, but because he’s not quite sure if he’s allowed to touch her like this. </p>
<p><br/> Her hand is light on his lapel, but the breathless weight of it burns through the fabric and into his skin, branding him. They’re not so much dancing as swaying in a circle together, and he’s worried all of a sudden that maybe she’s regretting it, would’ve rather stayed seated- or even worse, would’ve rather had Roy here with her. </p>
<p><br/> It dissipates instantly the moment she leans her head against his shoulder, her hair just barely brushing his jaw. He feels himself relax, instantly- didn’t even realize he was that tense- and when he glances down, he thinks he can see the tiniest bit of a smile at the corner of her mouth. </p>
<p><br/> The song ends, eventually, and he feels like it both lasted forever and was over too soon altogether. Pam pulls away slightly, just enough to meet his eyes, and she’s grinning up at him, that private smile he only gets to see every once in a while.</p>
<p> <br/> “Thank you,” she whispers, and Ryan’s not sure how to respond, so he shrugs, brushing a single stray strand of hair out of her face. </p>
<p><br/> “Anytime,” he says, and as they return to the table he notices that Roy’s disappeared, vanished from the spot he’d been rooted to all night. Pam notices too, and she comments on it, wondering aloud where he went, but it’s rhetorical, and he knows neither of them really care. She settles into her chair and kicks off her heels, nodding towards where Darryl and Kelly are still dancing together. </p>
<p><br/> “They seems nice together,” she comments, her tone measured just enough that it leaves it open for him to bitch about it or agree with her. He opts for the truth. </p>
<p><br/> “They are,” he says. Kelly’s grinning up at Daryl, both of them mumbling things to each other that aren’t meant for anyone else, and Ryan smiles softly in spite of himself. </p>
<p><br/> “You don’t think she’s doing it to make you jealous?” </p>
<p><br/> “At first? Yeah, probably,” he says, shrugging. It wouldn’t have been the craziest thing Kelly’d done to try and get him riled up. “But I think she’s invested now.”  </p>
<p><br/> Pam hums, and they watch the rest of the crowd thin out for a little while, chattering aimlessly. It feels weird to be so obviously comfortable with her, to have almost their after-work rapport in a space so filled with their co-workers. Not in a bad way, just- in a new way, he guesses, and that nameless feeling that occupies his chest so often these days accompanies it, keeping him warm. </p>
<p><br/> Phyllis and Bob disappear off to their honeymoon a little later, climbing into their limo with nothing but wide grins. Him and Pam kip off not much later, him walking her back to her car. She’s parked right by him again- she’s got to be doing this on purpose, he thinks- but when they reach her Toyota, she holds out one finger. </p>
<p><br/> “I want to try something,” is all she says, and she turns on the car just enough to get the radio going. </p>
<p><br/> “What are you doing?” he says, and he’s leaning against the open door, but she just laughs, insisting he hold on for a minute. ‘Lazy Eye’ floats through the speakers after a second, way too loud and jarring before she can spin the volume down, and then she’s hopping out, holding her arms out. </p>
<p><br/> “Okay,” is all she says, and Ryan doesn’t clue in until she takes his hand and plants it firmly on her waist, gripping his other one in her own. </p>
<p><br/> “You made me wait here so we could dance to the Silversun Pickups?” he teases, but they’re swaying, and he’s pretty sure he’s leading. It’s not really a slow song, not exactly made for dancing for like this. </p>
<p><br/> She just shushes him, giggling a little, and pulls him a little closer, leaning her head again his shoulder again. It’s beyond nice, even if he is spinning in a slow circle in a parking lot to a car radio; the stars are out, and the lot is far enough out of the way that there isn’t too much light pollution. </p>
<p><br/> He brushes the lightest of kisses to the top of her head as the song ends, and her eyes are watery but her face is so bright and content that he thinks it could drown out the stars on its own. He doesn’t know what to say to not ruin the moment, this tentative softness between them, and he doesn’t think she does, either, because she just gives him a long, tight hug, pressing her face into his neck. </p>
<p><br/> He can’t sleep once he gets home, sprawling out on the couch and flicking through late night TV, instead. He’s in deep, so much deeper than he realized, and he maybe sort of understands why Halpert fucked off to Connecticut. Kind of. </p>
<p><br/> He finally drifts off as the TV blares some documentary on dinosaurs, drowsy-warm against the couch cushions with the Police stuck on repeat in his head. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>No beta for this one, lads. All mistakes- grammar, spelling, and characterization- are my own. <br/>Chapter title is from Silversun Pickups' 'Latchkey Kids'</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. you've heard enough now to know me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>She’s soft against all his sharp angles, and he can feel her starting to round his edges out a little, make him a little less pointed. It feels like she brands him every time she touches him, her fingertips hot and bruising against his skin, even with the lightest of touches. </p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>No beta again, lads. All mistakes are my own. <br/>Chapter title is from Bear Hands' 'Agora'</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> They’re more touchy with each other after Phyllis’ wedding, he realizes, a little freer with their friendship than they used to be. Even at the office, where they used to downplay how close they’d gotten. Pam starts setting aside the green jolly ranchers for him, piling a few off to the side so he can swipe them every time he pops by the reception desk, and that really sort of sets his stomach tumbling when he notices it. </p>
<p><br/> It’s not lost on the rest of the office, either. Angela keeps making pointed comments, which isn’t even that out of the ordinary, but Meredith and Oscar start to get in on it, too. They roll mostly off his back, and he can tell Pam’s not too bothered by it either- she makes a joke about how she’s just doomed to befriend whoever sits in that particular desk- but it makes Ryan’s heart stutter a little. </p>
<p><br/> She has a little green candy waiting for him when he brings her a few things that need copying, and he pops it in his mouth as she runs it for him. It didn’t even really <em>need</em> copying, honestly, and he knows how to make his own copies, but he finds that he takes almost any excuse to talk to Pam these days. He’s beginning to hate how much him and Halpert have in common. </p>
<p><br/> “Hey, you wanna go to Rex and Jared’s with me this weekend?” he asks. It’s a little calculated, a little more directed than the last time he’d invited her to Rex and Jared’s, and he thinks she picks up on it- her eyebrows go up a fraction, her mouth turned up just the slightest touch at the corners. </p>
<p><br/> “Yeah, uh- yeah, that’d be fun,” she says, handing him back a fresh stack of copies. </p>
<p><br/> “Cool,” he says, and he’s forcing himself to be casual about it, but he can feel how wide his grin is, and he wishes he was slightly more annoyed with himself for being this pleased. Pam’s grinning too, though, in that way where she doesn’t really want to give away exactly how happy she is, and he carries that back to his desk with him. </p>
<p><br/> Dwight’s on his case immediately, pestering him for the rest of the day about what he could possibly be so happy about. He doesn’t have any sort of answer for Dwight, but then again, he doesn’t normally feel the need to humor Dwight, either, so. </p>
<p>—</p>
<p><br/> The weekend dawns bright and crisp, the first really good fall morning they’ve gotten. He spends his morning on his dinky little apartment balcony, too small to really fit the table and chair that he’s squeezed into it, drinking black coffee and pretending to read the New Yorker. </p>
<p><br/> It’s the sort of September morning that begs for contemplation, he thinks, one of the ones he would’ve spent with a cigarette and one of his James Joyce books while in college. God, he used to be pretentious. </p>
<p><br/> He’s in the middle of mourning his mysterious, aloof aura he’d spent so many years cultivating when his blackberry rings, shrill against his thoughts. Pam’s contact flashes on the screen, and he tosses the magazine on the table in favor of the phone. </p>
<p><br/> “What’s up,” he says, his voice just a little too loud for this early in the morning- Ms. Cushall next to him, on her own balcony, throws him a glare over her slice of toast. He makes a face back at her, careful to keep it from bleeding into his voice. </p>
<p><br/> “Good morning to you too,” Pam chides, teasing. “Hey, listen, I was wondering if you could give me a ride tonight? I had to drop my car off at the mechanic’s, there’s something wrong with the wheel axel.” </p>
<p><br/> “The wheel axel? You diagnose that one yourself?” he asks, and she laughs down the receiver.</p>
<p><br/> “Yeah, actually, I did. I know how to change a tire, Howard, don’t diss my car knowledge,” she says, and she says it with all the false bravado in the world, but that’s more than Ryan knows about cars, and he can’t bite back against that one.  </p>
<p><br/> “I can pick you up,” he says, instead. “Does eight work? Where’s your apartment, anyway?” </p>
<p><br/> “It’s a little up by Dunmore, I can give you the address if you’ve got some paper ready-“ </p>
<p><br/> “No texting plan yet?” </p>
<p><br/> “Shut up!” she laughs, not even a hint of bite to it. He’s been trying to convince her to add texting to her phone plan for close to a year now, even though he knows she’s still got one of those flip phones with the t9 keyboards, and she’s resisted every time. He scribbles her address in the margins of one of the New Yorker articles he’ll only skim the first page of, dog-earing the page so he can find it easily later. </p>
<p><br/> “Eight sounds perfect, by the way,” she says, after he’s done. “Just don’t forget to have me home by eleven, that’s my curfew.” </p>
<p><br/> “I’ve seen you out past eleven <em>so</em> many times,” he shoots back, playful as ever, and he knows that they’re flirting- there’s a charged level to this, past their usual back-and-forth, and his stomach is thrumming up against his ribs. He’s excited to see her tonight, more so than he usually is. </p>
<p><br/> “That’s because you’re a bad influence,” she says, and Ryan can’t really argue with that one. He probably is, is most likely rubbing off on her in all the worst ways, but maybe- if he thinks about it in the right light- maybe she’s a good influence on him. </p>
<p><br/> “See you at eight. Don’t make me honk twice,” he warns, and the affronted chuckle that comes out of her is worth the lie.</p>
<p><br/> “You’re not even going to come inside!” her voice is edged with the smallest hint of accusation, of betrayal, like she really believes Ryan would pull up along the side of the road and honk, not even bother to knock on her door. </p>
<p><br/> “Play your cards right and we’ll see what I can do,” he says, so she knows he’s teasing. He says a goodbye a few minutes later, placing the phone down on top of his magazine. His coffee’s gone a little cool for his liking, but he drinks it anyway, small sips that he lets settle. </p>
<p><br/> Ms. Cushall clears her throat, her lined face pulled into a grimace. “You need to be more respectful of your neighbors,” she grumbles, pointing across the railing to his table. “Be quieter in the morning. Talk softer.” </p>
<p><br/> Even she can’t ruin his mood, though, his head still feeling like it’s floating a full foot above his shoulders. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll keep it mind,” he says, and though it’s not unkind, he says it with just the right tone for her to know that he doesn’t particularly give a shit if he’s bothering her. She <em>hmphs</em> into her tea mug, clearly offended but with no way to express it, and Ryan gathers his things and moves inside. </p>
<p>—</p>
<p><br/> He’s outside Pam’s complex at eight-oh-two, knocking on her door by eight-oh-three. He’s only been to the house her and Roy had shared, where he’s pretty sure Roy still lives- she’d left it to him, at least, after breaking off the wedding- and being here, at her apartment, gives his gut a little trill every time he thinks about it. </p>
<p><br/> She answers the door in a loose hoodie, still sliding an earring into her left ear. “I’m running late, I’m so sorry,” she says in lieu of a greeting, and Ryan can’t even bring himself to be annoyed, even though he knows he would’ve been had this been anyone else. </p>
<p><br/> She opens the door wide enough to let him in. Her apartment’s airy and bright, sparse but in a purposeful way- plants take up a lot of the open table spaces- and it smells just barely fruity, like she opens candles but never actually lights them. </p>
<p><br/> “Take your time,” he says, and she gives him a grateful little hug and disappears down the hallway, into what he guesses is her room. He flops down on the sofa, careful to keep his shoes off of everything- and, yes, he’s still wearing his Vans, and he’s decided he doesn’t give a shit if they look good or not. </p>
<p><br/> It’s a little weird, being in Pam’s apartment, where everything is so distinctly her. He was worried he’d feel like an intruder into her space, and he’s pleasantly surprised to find it’s the opposite. It feels almost like Pam’s allowing him in, trusting him with being a part of where she exists, and he feels automatically comfortable against the couch cushions. </p>
<p><br/> He lets himself, very, very briefly, consider her in his apartment- wonders what she’d think of it, if she’d be as relaxed there as he is here- but he shuts the train of thought down quickly, afraid of where it might lead. He doesn’t want to force this, wants to let this- whatever it is- develop naturally, slowly. For once, he doesn’t want to ruin something by over-controlling it. </p>
<p><br/> Pam reappears a few minutes later, closing her door softly behind her as she comes back down the hallway. She’s got on slim jeans, skinny fabric all the way down her legs, with a loose pink shirt in a color so soft that it almost looks white. She’s got a denim jacket thrown over the crook of her arm and she’s swapped her usual bag for one of those crossbody ones. Ryan don’t know how he’s going to make it through the night, not when she looks like this. He’s suddenly aggressively self-conscious, feeling woefully bland in his black jeans and chambray button-up. Maybe he should’ve ditched the Vans, after all. </p>
<p><br/> “Sorry, sorry,” she’s saying again, pulling on black Keds, and Ryan can’t do anything other than shrug, wave off her apologies. </p>
<p><br/> “Don’t even worry about it,” he says, once his brain’s back online, and he holds the door open for her as they exit her apartment. She tries to fiddle with the radio once they’re in his car, flicking it to a country station as a challenge, but he can’t suffer through Toby Keith for more than ten seconds, and he turns it back to alt-rock almost immediately. </p>
<p><br/> She doesn’t even argue, just sings along to the Kooks with him. Her hand finds his at one point, briefly, their pinkies interlocking, but then she’s pointing out a restaurant Roy got banned from and the contact is lost. He’s surprised how cold his finger feels once she lets go of it. </p>
<p><br/> The party’s at a peak when they arrive, Rex doing a keg stand in the middle of their back deck. Jared finds Ryan immediately, pressing bottles of Yuengling into both their palms. “You’re late!” he cries, clapping Ryan on the back. </p>
<p><br/> “We’re so sorry, it’s my fault,” Pam says, and Jared pulls her into a hug like he’s done this a thousand times before, like she belongs. </p>
<p><br/> “You guys came together?” he asks as he pulls away, and Pam nods, explaining her car’s in the shop, that Ryan had come and gotten her. She doesn’t miss Jared’s look of disbelief, the glance he shoots towards Ryan, and she laughs a little nervously. </p>
<p><br/> “What?” </p>
<p><br/> “Nothing, it’s just…” Jared trails off, shrugging. “In all my years of knowing Ryan, I have never known him to willingly give someone a ride. That’s all.” </p>
<p><br/> Ryan feels his ear burn, and he’s sure they’re a bright red, glowing like a signal light in the dim backyard. “I like to keep a clean car,” he mumbles, pitifully- and it’s a lie, too, his car’s a cluttered mess, and what’s worse is that Pam knows this. </p>
<p><br/> She doesn’t call him out on it, though, just bites down on her bottom lip, trying to clamp down a smile he knows will leak out anyway. “Well,” she says, “I guess I must be a little special.” </p>
<p><br/> “You must be,” Jared muses, agreeing with her, and Ryan didn’t think it was possible, but his ears burn even hotter. Rex bounds over, wiping his mouth with the hem of his shirt, and lets out a loud whoop, pulling the three of them into a messy group hug before he’s off again, chattering to a blonde Ryan recognizes as one of Jared’s exes. </p>
<p><br/> The party stays at that even peak all night long, easy and fun, just bordering on the edge of rambunctious. Rex gets goaded into another keg stand by his cousin, but he’s really the only one that’s drunk- everyone else seems just barely over the edge of tipsy all night, straddling the line right before buzzed. </p>
<p><br/> It’s pleasant, a warm hum underneath his skin. He’s leaning against the patio railing, talking to Jared and his current girlfriend- Eliza- and he likes her, he hopes Jared doesn’t wreck this relationship too fast. Pam’s next to him, pressed against his side just enough that he can feel the heat of her skin through his shirt. He’s got his bottle in one hand, taking occasional swigs from it, and, as casually as he can, he slides his other arm around her back, brings his hand to rest against her lower back. </p>
<p><br/> He’s waiting for her to point it out, make some sort of deal about it, or, even worse, shrug it off and step away from him. She doesn’t, just gives him a very small smile and leans into him ever so slightly more. His heart feels like a jackhammer against his ribs, and he’s not sure when he got so sensitive, but he’s really not in any rush to put a stop to it.</p>
<p> <br/> He smiles back at her round the lip of his bottle, quick and tiny as he takes another sip. He’s completely lost track of what Eliza’s saying, but he thinks it’s supposed to be a funny story, and he breathes out a halfhearted laugh. </p>
<p><br/> “Right!” Eliza says, and Ryan sends a silent thanks to Kelly for training him how to listen without actually hearing. “No one ever laughs at that point, that’s the best part of the whole thing.” </p>
<p><br/> “Absolutely,” Ryan agrees, finally turning his whole attention back to the conversation. Jared doesn’t miss what’s happened, and he narrows his eyes at where Ryan’s arm disappears behind Pam, but all he does wink very smoothly and turn back to Eliza, yawning. </p>
<p><br/> “‘m tired,” he says, “wanna go watch TV,” and the two of them disappear into the house after a quick goodbye, leaving Ryan and Pam on the patio. She clinks her bottle against his, both of them echoing, and stands up straight. </p>
<p><br/> “One more?” she asks, and Ryan drains the little that’s left in his own bottle and holds the back door open for her. </p>
<p><br/> The kitchen’s empty, everyone out in the backyard or upstairs, and he pulls two more Yuenglings out of the fridge. He pops the cap off before handing it to her, and she takes a long sip before putting it on the counter next to her. </p>
<p><br/> It’s much quieter in the kitchen, and he’s suddenly hyper-aware of every part of himself, where he’s standing and how he’s breathing, and he can feel the tiniest bubbles of anxiety low in his gut. He takes a single deep breath, forcing it back, and leans against the kitchen counter next to her, brushing their shoulders together. </p>
<p><br/> “Thanks for inviting me,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper, and Ryan shrugs, forcing out a sense of nonchalance that he hopes is coming across as comical. </p>
<p><br/> “Thanks for coming,” he says, and he matches her tone. He lets his free hand find hers, dangling down by her side, and laces their fingers together loosely. The tiniest bit of a blush colors her cheeks, high up near her cheekbones, and she squeezes his hand a single time before relaxing again. </p>
<p><br/> It feels like his skin’s on fire wherever she touches it, and he places his drink down on the counter as gently as he can- it feels like if he’s too loud or too brash he’s going to break this moment, and that’s the last thing he wants to do right now. </p>
<p><br/> Pam turns a little bit into him, still keeping their hands clasped together. “Remember when we danced, at Phyllis’ wedding?” she asks, and she lays her hand on his chest like she’s going to start dancing again. </p>
<p><br/> Ryan nods wordlessly, and he brings his other hand up to her face, cupping her jaw, keeping his touch as light and as loose as he can. She leans into it, pressing her face against his palm, and he slides his hand back a little, threading his fingers through her hair. </p>
<p><br/> “Ryan,” she breathes, just barely audible, and Ryan feels like he’s swimming through silk, here in his friend’s kitchen. He drops his forehead a little, bumping it against hers. </p>
<p><br/> “What’s up,” he mumbles, and she breathes a laugh onto his face, and he’s grinning before he knows it, laughing along with her. She doesn’t pull away, doesn’t leave his space, and he closes the distance, brushing his lips against hers before pulling away just enough to see her eyes. </p>
<p><br/> She’s still smiling, her eyes bright, and he surges forward again, pressing his lips to hers more firmly. It’s one of the best kisses he’s ever had, butterfly soft, and he feels drunker off of it than anything he drank all night. He disentangles their fingers and wraps his other arm around her back, pulling her in as close as he can get her. </p>
<p><br/> He has no idea how long they stay there, kissing against the counter top like they’re at a college party, but at some point the back door bangs open and a drunk Rex barges through it. They break apart, but she stays pressed against him, and he keeps his arm wound around her back. </p>
<p><br/> “‘Sup,” Rex says, and it’s clear he has no idea what he’s stumbled in on. One of Jared’s exes, the blonde woman he’d seen earlier, is close behind him. She gives Ryan a cursory nod- Alayna, that’s her name, he remembers- and he returns it. He does’t remember particularly liking Alayna, but he doesn’t think he really disliked her, either. They stumble up towards the stair way, the back door still ajar- it’s clear from the noise level outside that the party’s died down a fair bit, and Ryan waits until Rex and Alayna have started climbing the stairs to turn back to Pam. </p>
<p><br/> She’s still close to him, her hand still splayed flat against his chest. “You wanna get out of here?” he asks, and he winces a little, because it really sounds like a line, and that’s the opposite of what he’s going for.  She nods, her hair bouncing, and Ryan’s not sure why he keeps expecting her to reject him, because the surge of relief that floods through him when she agrees takes him by surprise. </p>
<p> “Yeah?” he asks, brushing his thumb across her cheek, tracing barely visible freckles. </p>
<p><br/> “Yeah,” she breathes. </p>
<p><br/> “You wanna come over? I’ll drive you home in the morning, or tonight, even- let me know when you want to leave,” he blabbers, and she chuckles, pulling away slightly, grabbing his hand to take him with her. </p>
<p><br/> “You can take me home tomorrow morning,” she says, her tone light, and Ryan almost, almost makes a comment about how he thought she had to be home by eleven- it’s halfway out of his mouth- but then she’s walking out the back door, towards the car, and the words die in his throat. </p>
<p><br/>  He does finally eke it out, as they’re climbing into the car, and Pam laughs, full and hearty. “I guess you’ve got some explaining to do, then,” she says, and he leans across the console and press another kiss against her lips, just because he can. </p>
<p><br/> His apartment isn’t far from Rex and Jared’s, maybe ten minutes, and when he finally gets his front door unlocked, his pulse is thrumming against his skin. His apartment’s a lot like his car, cluttered and haphazardly organized, and Pam’s barely through the door before she’s sifting through his piles of books and magazines, eyebrows raised up to her hairline. </p>
<p><br/> “The New Yorker?” she asks, and it’s unabashedly judgmental. </p>
<p><br/> “It’s- the cartoons are really topical,” he sputters out, and he can feel his cheeks growing hot, but then Pam’s kissing him again as they’re both laughing, and suddenly it doesn’t matter that he pays for a New Yorker subscription just so he can say that he reads it, or that he hasn’t actually cracked open an issue of it past page 13 in over a year. </p>
<p><br/> She’s soft against all his sharp angles, and he can feel her starting to round his edges out a little, make him a little less pointed. It feels like she brands him every time she touches him, her fingertips hot and bruising against his skin, even with the lightest of touches. <br/> </p>
<p>—</p>
<p> He wakes up a little past seven the next morning, Pam tucked against his front. She’s got one of his old shirts on, a well-worn blink-182 concert shirt he must’ve gotten in high school, and he pulls her a little closer, nestling his head in the crook of her shoulder. </p>
<p><br/> She mumbles something inaudible, her back sleep-warm against his chest, and he presses a tiny, light kiss to her shoulder. </p>
<p><br/> “Morning,” she yawns. She pulls the hand that’s slung around her waist up to her mouth, pressing soft kisses to each of his fingertips, and Ryan knows in that moment that he’s well and truly, absolutely, fucked. His heart’s already betrayed him, moved right on past the cavalier sort of ‘maybe, don’t press it’ attitude he has with any one he dates, and is trying to leap out of his throat to make them exclusive. </p>
<p><br/> He forces it all back, chokes on his own tongue with the effort, and kisses up her neck to her eye instead, asking what she wants for breakfast. He can deal with that whole mess on a full stomach. </p>
<p>—</p>
<p> September cools rapidly, dropping to the high sixties seemingly overnight and hovering there. It’s the kind of weather where Ryan really does need a jacket when he’s outside, but he knows he’s only going to take it off immediately once he’s inside, so he forgoes it completely, choosing to shiver during the short walk from his car to Al’s instead. </p>
<p><br/> Pam, of course, thinks he’s an idiot; she’s got her denim jacket hanging off the low back of her bar stool, even though she’s got her loose black sweater on, the one with the neckline that dips just low enough to show her collarbones. Ryan’s wearing only a navy t-shirt, and she mumbles a ‘ridiculous,’ under her breath when she sees this. </p>
<p><br/> He grins at that, kissing her quickly in greeting. They do that, now, even though he’s still unsure where exactly they stand with each other- it feels solid, at least, whatever it is, even though he can’t confidently put a name to it. She kisses him back, her cheeks the tiniest bit rosier when he pulls away. She’s got a pint glass already waiting for him on the bar, and he might move his bar stool just a little closer to her as he sits down. </p>
<p><br/> It’s the first time they’ve been to Al’s since the party on Saturday, and even though they fumbled around in her car a little bit on Tuesday after work, and even though he’s been finding ways to steal a kiss or two from her when he can, they still haven’t been properly alone since the weekend. There’s no hint of awkwardness between them, though, not a single note of uncertainty in either of their voices, and this fact alone makes him feel like his chest is glowing. </p>
<p><br/> “Dwight was on a fucking level today,” he says, taking a long sip of his beer, and she drops her head into her hands, groaning audibly. </p>
<p><br/> “Don’t even get me started,” she says. “Do you know how many demands of his I had to fill? The notes I have from his meetings? Ryan, he made me make a detailed log of every time anyone got up to use the bathroom.” </p>
<p><br/> “Him crying and begging for his job back was really something, though,” Ryan says, and he rests his arm around the back of her stool, brushing his knuckles against her back gently as he does so. </p>
<p><br/> She snorts, rolling her eyes, but it’s at Dwight’s antics and not him, because she leans back in her stool a little, allowing him to splay his palm flat against her spine. “I give him six months before he stops doing Michael’s laundry.” </p>
<p><br/> “Eight,” Ryan says, and Pam sticks her hand out to his. </p>
<p><br/> “Ten bucks,” she says. </p>
<p><br/> “Oh, you’re so on,” he says, shaking her hand just a little bit longer than he probably has to. “Dwight’s so far up Michael’s asshole he can see the light coming out of his mouth, there’s no way he dips only six months in.” </p>
<p><br/> “He’s too proud!” Pam argues, and she’s twisting a little to face him better. “He won’t make it to eight months, not a <em>chance</em>. You can only wash Michael Scott’s underwear for so long.” </p>
<p><br/> “Are you speaking from experience?” he asks, so seriously that Pam stutters for a second, but then she catches his grin around the lip of his glass. </p>
<p><br/> “You’re such dick,” she laughs, shoving him a little bit, and he doesn’t mind the insult at all, not when it comes from her. </p>
<p><br/> Mark appears in his vision suddenly, sliding another beer towards him and another vodka soda to Pam, swiping her empty glass as he does so. “Tab?” he asks, and Ryan fishes his wallet out as Pam tries to convince Mark to put it all under hers. Mark nods along like he agrees with her, but he takes Ryan’s card anyway, pointing to the two of them with it as he sidesteps back down to the far end of the bar. </p>
<p><br/> “Congrats, by the way,” he says, the rounded edge of Ryan’s card flicking between the two of them, sitting far closer than usual. Ryan blushes a little, but before either he or Pam can say anything back to Mark, Sal’s there, clapping his hands against both their backs. </p>
<p><br/> “Hell yeah,” he says, shaking them gently. “I was waiting for this, I kept telling Mark. ‘They’re together,’ I would say, and he didn’t believe me, kept spouting about Kelly, but look! I was right!” </p>
<p><br/> Pam laughs nervously, her eyes darting to Ryan’s for a second. She doesn’t move from where his hand’s still against her back, though, and he rubs his palm up her back, once, softly. She seems to relax a little, her smile a little more genuine, and Ryan nods at Sal. </p>
<p><br/> “Yeah, uh, Kelly’s definitely not in the picture anymore,” is all he says. They’ve actually struck up a tentative friendship, him and Kelly; they end up eating lunch together more often than not, and he’s found that her constant chittering is a lot easier to stomach when he’s not romantically attached to her. He even let her argue with him about what Brad and Angelina named their baby, which is a conversation he wouldn’t have even entertained only two months ago. </p>
<p><br/> “Good for you,” Sal says, and he gives them a clap on the back again, moving back towards his own stool. </p>
<p><br/> Pam laughs as he retreats out of earshot, her mouth stretched into an amused grimace. “Kelly’s out of the picture, huh?” she says, and Ryan’s pretty sure he’s reading her tone right, is <em>almos</em>t positive that he knows what she’s actually trying to ask. </p>
<p><br/> “Sure is,” he says, and he wants to follow it up with something smooth, something endearing that’ll make her giggle, but his brain is coming up empty, and he traces his finger through the barely-there condensation on his glass, instead. </p>
<p><br/> Pam blushes a little, anyway, and chews on her tiny little cocktail straw. “Good to know,” she says, and Ryan scratches his fingers against her spine lightly, hoping desperately he’s seeing this whole thing in the right light. </p>
<p><br/> She blushes harder, so he guesses he is, and he can’t help but smile widely. </p>
<p><br/> “Tell me about that book you’re reading,” she says, “the one Dwight was harping on you about earlier.” </p>
<p><br/> “<em>Lullaby?</em>” he asks, because there’s a lot that Dwight harps on him about, especially when it comes to his books- Dwight’s convinced that the only books anyone should read are technical manuals and, for whatever reason, Stephen King novels. “You already read it, what are you asking me for?” </p>
<p><br/> “I didn’t think you remembered that,” she says, not at all embarrassed to be called out on it, and he flicks her nose. </p>
<p><br/> “I love Palahniuk, you know that,” he says. “You really think I wasn’t paying attention when you brought that book in for three days straight? <em>That’s</em> why I’m reading it.” </p>
<p><br/> “You’ve never actually read any Palahniuk,” she says, so matter-of-factly that Ryan chokes on his sip of beer.  </p>
<p><br/> “How do you know?” he challenges. She’s right, he hasn’t read anything else the man had written- he’d barely read <em>Lullaby</em>, had made it maybe three pages in before he’d dog-eared the page and tossed it aside. </p>
<p><br/> “Because if you read <em>Fight Club</em> you’d be the most insufferable, self-asserting asshole I’d ever have the misfortune to meet,” she says, shrugging, and well, Ryan really can’t argue with that. He’s seen the trailer for the movie, had liked whatever vibe Brad Pitt had been throwing off in it, and he’d read a summary just enough to be able to understand the Tyler Durden jokes, but his efforts had stopped there. </p>
<p><br/> Pam had a habit of calling him out on all his half-started things, on his cobbled-together personality that’s mostly for appearances, and he’d found it irritating at first, disliking how easily she saw through him. Somewhere along the line that’d changed, though he’s not sure where, and now he loves it, secretly. That there’s someone that can not only immediately see through his bullshit, but that she also has the nerve to call him on it, lay it on the table in front of him, expose it. He’s spent so long cultivating and growing a certain persona that it’s oddly refreshing- and a little scary, honestly- that she was able to pull his real self out to the surface. </p>
<p> “Probably,” he says, instead of everything else he wants to say. He makes a note to actually sit down and read <em>Lullaby</em> when he gets home. </p>
<p><br/> Pam fights him for the bill again when they go to leave, only letting up when he agrees to stay over that night. He has to wake up extra early the next morning to give himself enough time to grab fresh clothes before work, but Pam gets up with him and lets him use her shower. </p>
<p><br/> The whole ordeal is worth it, he thinks, even as Dwight makes comments about how he ‘smells like a girl’ all Friday long. </p>
<p>—</p>
<p> Ryan doesn’t get the courage to ask her out for a real dinner, a formal dinner, for another week. It’s pathetic, honestly- he’s seen her naked and he knows the exact spot behind the ears that her cat, Spud, likes to be scratched, but it takes him three days to work out how to ask her out in the first place, and another two to balk up the stones to actually do it.</p>
<p> <br/> She’d had to go downstate for the day, though, to visit her sister in Philadelphia and see her niece, which is why he finds himself waiting for her in the parking lot of Sambuca’s, his tie a little too loose against his neck. </p>
<p><br/> He wishes he hadn’t quit smoking, had kept a pack of Marb 100s in the glove compartment or something- anything to give him something to do with his hands. He’s leaning against the hood of his car, the metal still clinking as it cools down, spinning his blackberry around in his hands when she pulls into the parking lot. </p>
<p><br/> She’s parked and out of the car before he can even stand up straight, heels clicking against the asphalt as she strides towards him. It’s odd to see her in formal wear that’s not her business pencil skirts, almost as odd as it was to see her dressed casually for the first time. She’s got on cropped black dress pants and a silky button up, the material clinging to her just enough to suggest what’s underneath. His mouth feels dry. </p>
<p><br/> He kisses her hello, mumbling some word of greeting into her mouth that she parrots back to him. “You look great,” he says, once he’s pulled away and taken her hand instead. They’ve matched a little, accidentally. The blue in his tie pairs nicely against the deep royal of her blouse, and they look almost like a couple. </p>
<p><br/> Pam waves her hand, rolling her eyes, giving some excuse about how he’d only had a few minutes to change and how she hadn’t even done her hair. Ryan thinks she could’ve showed up in a sweatshirt and gym shorts and he would’ve said the same, and meant it. </p>
<p><br/> Well, maybe not meant it, but he still would’ve said it. </p>
<p><br/> They get seated at a table in a corner near a window, the lighting dim and candlelit. It splashes rosy-golden on her skin, and he hopes it’s just as flattering on his own complexion. The night feels like a memory happening in real-time, soft at the edges and hazy, like he’s swimming in a dream right on the edge of waking. </p>
<p><br/> They crush a bottle of wine together, a expensive rosé, because he’s not really a wine drinker and the only thing he knows how to order is whine zinfandel- ‘white zinny’, Pam calls it- and he doesn’t remember what he eats but he knows it’s not good enough to cost as much as it does. He doesn’t let her see the check, just tosses his card into the billfold and hands it back before the waiter can even walk away. </p>
<p><br/> Her hand finds his again as they walk to their cars after, and he doesn’t let it go when she tries to unlock her door. </p>
<p><br/> “Ryan,” she whines, giggling, trying to dig one-handed through her tiny bag for her keys. </p>
<p><br/> “Pam,” he mocks, good-naturedly, and she throws him a playful glare and tries, futilely, to disentangle their fingers. </p>
<p><br/> “I need my keys,” she insists, but there’s no urgency to her voice. He has no idea what they are still, no idea where this is going yet, just that he knows he loves being with her, loves waking up with her next to him, loves knowing exactly what to say to make her laugh or roll her eyes or blush. </p>
<p><br/> It’s embarrassing, honestly, how desperately he wants to be able to call her his, and vice versa. He’s avoided this as much as could, kept his emotional distance with almost every girl he’s been with, besides maybe his first college girlfriend. He hates it, detests how willingly he let his walls crumble down for Pam, but with her in front of him, bright eyed and giggly as she tries, again, to pull her hand apart from his with minimal effort, he can’t bring himself to be too mad about it. </p>
<p><br/> “Do you-“ he starts, but his voice dies in his throat, and he leans against her car, pulling her towards him gently. He’s never done this, not really- every girl he’s dated has pressed him into this, pushed him along the relationship trajectory before he could even decide if he liked them, and he’s not sure how to ask it without sounding corny as hell. Kelly had always just announced it, like a fact, and he can think of three other girls who’d asked him, point blank, ‘what are we?’. </p>
<p><br/> “Are we- y’know- are you seeing other guys?” he asks, finally, and he can feel his ears burning. He doesn’t want to look her in the eyes, but he can’t look away, either. </p>
<p><br/> “Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” she asks, her voice high and teasing, wild with delight, and Ryan wants to bury his head in the sand. He hates this, hates how much he wants it.</p>
<p> <br/> “Well, when you put it that way, no,” he says, but he squeezes their interlocked hands. Sarcasm’s the only way he knows how to deal with a lot of things, especially things that really require a lot of sincerity, and he hasn’t had enough wine to fully drop that aspect of himself. </p>
<p><br/> “I’m not,” she says, her voice suddenly quiet. “Seeing anyone else, I mean.” </p>
<p><br/> His chest feels like it’s fire, like there’s a heat crawling somewhere deep inside, underneath his bones. “Me neither. Girls, I mean. But, uh…” he trails off, scratching at his head with his free hand. “Don’t. You know. See anyone else.” </p>
<p><br/> “Yes, Ryan, I’ll be your girlfriend,” she says, and he sighs in relief, color still high in his cheeks. She’s kissing him, then, pressed up against her stupid blue Yaris, both of her hands coming up to cup his face. He winds his own arms around her back, pressing her to him. </p>
<p><br/> He ends up at her apartment again that night, but this time he stays well into the afternoon. He pulls his blink-182 shirt out of her dresser the next morning- hadn’t even realized she’d swiped it- and wears it with a pair of basketball shorts he’d kept in his car. It smells like her, and keeps catching whiffs of her detergent- while he’s pouring a cup of coffee, while he’s scratching at Spud’s ears on the couch, while he’s driving home that afternoon. </p>
<p><br/> He throws the shirt back to her the next time she’s over, freshly laundered and still warm from the dryer, and she wears it to bed that night. </p>
<p>— </p>
<p> Rationally, he knows the office had to find out at some point, but he really didn’t imagine it happening on a Wednesday morning, with Michael catching them in the parking lot. He’s handing Pam a coffee, Starbucks that’d he’d picked up on his way into work, and Pam peppers a few kisses onto his face as she takes it, her eyes still sleep-lidded. </p>
<p><br/> He’d thought they were here early enough that they were safe to do this, and it’s evident that’s he’s misjudged Michael’s ability to roll out of bed on time, because as he pulls away he hears a loud, emphatic ‘What!’, the tone laced with the kind of glee and giddiness that only Michael can pull off. </p>
<p><br/> He freezes, his face only inches from Pam’s, who’s eyes are wide with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. Ryan slides his gaze to the right, where Michael’s staring at them, openmouthed, near his own car. </p>
<p><br/> “Fuck,” Ryan breathes, and he straightens, nodding towards Michael. “Morning,” he calls, thinking maybe he can play this off as nothing, like Michael won’t make a big deal of it if he just pretends it wasn’t happening. </p>
<p><br/> It’s a futile thought, obviously, and Michael just huffs a laugh, striding towards them. “You two are hooking up?” he asks, looking wildly between them, and Pam stammers out a ‘not quite,’ just as Ryan denies it. </p>
<p><br/> Michael glances between them, ping-ponging, before huffing another laugh. “Well?” he asks, and Ryan sighs, rolling his eyes skyward, sending a silent prayer for strength towards the heavens. </p>
<p><br/> “We’re…” Pam trails off, glancing at Ryan. Whether she’s looking for courage, or confirmation, or permission, he’s not sure, so he shrugs the tiniest bit, giving her the reins on this, trusting her judgement. “We’re dating,” her voice is clearer, firmer this time, and she nods at Michael. </p>
<p><br/> “For how long?” Michael asks. “Have you- you know-“ </p>
<p><br/> “That’s enough,” Ryan cuts him off, his voice slipping back into the flat, disinterested tone he takes so often with Michael, who, to his credit, drops that particular aspect. He peppers them with questions, still, as they enter the building, even as neither of them answer them. He’s still asking as they unlock the front door, and when Phyllis and Kevin amble in a few minutes later, he skips past a greeting to update them. </p>
<p><br/> “Pam and Ryan are dating,” he blurts out, and Ryan ignores them resolutely as they prod him with their own questions. It works, but they turn on Pam, who’s a little too kind to fully ignore them, and he finds himself answering a few of them just to keep them off her back.</p>
<p><br/>  By noon the entire office has mostly gotten their fill- even Kelly, who’d rolodexed through thoughts and queries so quickly that he hadn’t even had a chance to consider half of them- and they’re left alone. He’s finally able to finish the report he’d been pecking away at all morning, and when he swings by Pam’s desk to pick up the printed copy, he realizes the office knowing does have one good side effect. </p>
<p><br/> “Wanna get lunch?” he asks, popping a jelly bean in his mouth- he’d convinced her to bring them back, and like she did with the jolly ranchers, she sets aside a few of his favorite ones for him. </p>
<p><br/> “Let me just finish this fax for Oscar,” she says, and within ten minutes they’re in the break room, sitting side by side at the far table. It’s not an especially good lunch, or even a really memorable one- he doesn’t think they talk about anything of note, doesn’t think he makes any really good, scathing remarks or comments- but it’s freeing, he realizes, to sit here with Pam and be able to throw his arm around her chair back like he likes to. Maybe Michael finding out isn’t the worst thing, he reasons, not if he gets to bring her a cup of coffee in the afternoon and receive a quick kiss as a ‘thank you’. </p>
<p><br/> Toby does make them fill out a relationship disclosure form the next day, prefacing it with the fact that it’s only for serious relationships, ones that are going to stick around. He signs the paper before he can really think about what it means, that he’s committed himself to Pam to some degree, and he has a little panic attack about it in his car during his afternoon break. <br/> He knows it’s not marriage, that he can still break up with her if he wants to, that it’s not a binding contract, but he feels suffocated for a few minutes, like he’s drowning and he can’t claw his way to the surface. Pam finds him, when his break takes a little too long, and talks him off the edge, reassuring him that this doesn’t really change anything between them. </p>
<p><br/> And it doesn’t, not really- he still lives in his own apartment, still has his own bank account, and it’s not like he signed anything that binds him to Pam legally. Within a few days, the disclosure agreement fades to the back of his mind, and then he’s at her place all weekend long. He thinks it doesn’t really matter that the whole office knows now, not when he wakes up to Pam passing him a mug of coffee in bed, not when they spend a few hours that weekend strolling around the zoo, not when they fall back into her bed that night, barely able to take their clothes off fast enough. </p>
<p><br/> He still goes in on Monday, his tie irritating him and rubbing sleep from his eyes, but this time he picks Pam up on the way and they walk into the building together, her hand loosely twined with his. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The update after this one picks up some steam a little- Jim comes back in the next one- but thanks for sticking by me through 20k+ words of meandering. :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. i'm working so i don't have to try so hard</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>“Good day,” he agrees, tapping the neck of his own bottle against hers. He can’t help but kiss her, just a chaste peck before he pulls away again. The sun is just low enough in the sky that it paints everything golden, and it turns her hair a brassy copper. She brings her hand to rest on the nape of his neck, her touch peach-fuzz-soft, and he really thinks he loves her.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s noticeably cooler as September crawls into October, and Ryan finally gives in and starts wearing a coat to work. The leaves start changing, he’s got the new MGMT album playing on repeat in his car, him and Pam trade off coffee runs every morning, and he thinks this might be the first Scranton fall that’s genuinely enjoying.</p><p><br/>He’s even getting along with his mother; he’s making an effort to visit her every Monday after work, let her prattle on about her own work gossip from the hair salon, and she in turn lets him bitch about Michael. It’s not a perfect relationship, but it’s the best him and his mother have been in a while, and he even finds himself looking forward to it a little bit.</p><p><br/>Pam’s face lights up when he mentions that to her one Monday, as they’re packing up to leave work. Her and her own mother get along like a house on fire, the stereotypical ideal mother-daughter relationship, and she’s the one who encouraged him to try this out in the first place.</p><p><br/>“That’s incredible,” she says, buttoning up a peacoat that Ryan thinks it’s not quite cold enough for yet, but Pam’s stubborn and he knows better than to tell her what to wear.</p><p><br/>“It’s something,” he sighs, holding the door open for her; she ducks underneath his outstretched arm, twisting to face him once they’re in the hallway.</p><p><br/>“I think it’s great,” she says. “Especially since you don’t really get along with your dad, either. And I’m sure she’s happy to see you, even if she doesn’t say it.”</p><p><br/>Ryan snorts- his mom and dad had separated when he was in middle school, never formally divorcing, but they’d lived in separate houses on opposite sides of the city since he was in sixth grade. He’d mostly lived with his mother growing up, and they were more alike than he or his mother wanted to admit. She’d never tell him just how much it meant to her for him to stop by once a week, just like he’d never admit how warm it made his heart to be able to joke around with her again.</p><p><br/>“What’s she like?” Pam asks, suddenly, as they wait for the elevator to come back up, and it strikes Ryan like a lightning bolt that she’s never met his mom. They’ve been together a month now, formally, but it feels longer- he feels like he’s been dating her since at least July- and he’s scrambling, trying to figure out how to describe his mother to her while also determining how long it’s appropriate to go before introducing them.</p><p><br/>“You should come meet her,” he says, instead, and he doesn’t pine for cigarettes much anymore, but he really wishes he had one now, just so he has something else to do with his mouth besides talk.</p><p><br/>Pam’s surprised by the bluntness of it, he can tell, but she takes it in stride. “Right now? Today?” she asks, and she’s smoothing her hands down her front in the way she does when she’s self-conscious about what she’s wearing.</p><p><br/>“If you want, I can go grab your planner, you can pencil in a time instead,” he says, trying to lighten the suddenly heavy mood, making a half-aborted step towards the office door. It works, and she laughs, pulling at his sleeve to tug him into the elevator instead.</p><p><br/>“Can I change first?” she asks, pressing the lobby button with a single, manicured nail- they’re a deep maroon red, a color he hasn’t seen on her yet. He likes it.</p><p><br/>“I don’t know, I think business attire is a perfect way to meet Colleen,” he says, gesturing to her pencil skirt. “Of course you can change. I’ll follow you over, we can take my car to the house.”</p><p><br/>He changes in his car quickly while he waits for her, tugging on the pair of basketball shorts he keeps in there. Pam brings him a t-shirt he’d left in her apartment when she climbs into the car, and the closer they get to his mothers house, the more nervous he becomes. He hadn’t really put much thought into this, not much preparation, and he feels like maybe he needs to warn his mother.</p><p><br/>She knows he’s dating Pam, has talked about little else to her besides how frustrating Michael is- and Dwight, to an extent, though he’s somewhat easier to ignore- but his mother doesn’t really like visitors, and he’s not sure how well she’ll react to him bringing Pam along out of the blue.</p><p><br/>He thinks Pam can feel the anxiety thrumming underneath his skin, and she keeps the conversation light, tracing the knuckles on his hand with her fingers, asking him dumb little questions, ones he has to think just enough about to keep his mind focused.</p><p><br/>His fears are unfounded, though. Colleen’s at the breakfast bar when he lets himself into the house, her bony fingers flicking through a Marie Claire magazine too fast for her to be really reading it.</p><p><br/>“Ryan?” she calls, not bothering to turn around and check.</p><p><br/>“Yeah,” he calls back, and she hums, pointing to the stove top.</p><p><br/>“I put a kettle on not that long ago, the water’s still hot. Make yourself a cup if you want,” she flicks another page, making a face at a full-page spread button array.<br/>He takes a cup down from the cabinet, holding it out to Pam, who’s still standing by the front door, like she’s afraid to move, to make a noise. He clears his throat, getting a second mug down. “I, uh, I brought Pam,” he says, forcing the casual tone, hoping it won’t belie his nerves.</p><p><br/>Colleen hums again, before her brain catches up, and he sees her freeze, her nails hovering at a page corner. She looks up, finally, and he sees how similar he and his mother really look, with thin, long faces and bright blue eyes. Colleen has her hair cut in an Anjelica Huston-like bob, blunt bangs grazing her eyebrows, and she blinks once at him before glancing over her shoulder.</p><p><br/>Pam finally takes a step forward, her socked feet gliding along the hardwood, and she gives a tiny wave. She’s clearly nervous, a tight smile plastered on her face, her other hand shoved in her jeans pocket.</p><p><br/>Colleen waves back with her fingers, small little wiggles of her joints, and Ryan thinks that maybe he made a terrible mistake doing this so soon until Colleen rises from her stool.</p><p><br/>“You should offer your guest some tea,” she says, her tone pointed without being too sharp, and she tugs her expensive tea box down from above the fridge, the one Ryan’s not even allowed to touch unless it’s been a particularly hard day, and offers it to Pam. “I’m so sorry for my son’s lack of manners.” There’s a little glint in his mother’s eye, a tiny playful one that’s gone so quickly that he’s not sure if he imagined it or not. “I can’t imagine how difficult it must’ve been for you, raising him,” Pam says, her tone solemn, and Ryan snorts at the same time that his mother nods, pressing her palm flat against her chest.</p><p><br/>“He was a nightmare. Closed-off, always in his room, music too loud,” she rattles off, and Ryan knows that she’s teasing, but it still stings a tiny little bit, if he’s honest. Pam flips through the tea bags, pulling out a golden yellow packet he can’t identify, and hums in agreement.</p><p><br/>“It’s kind of comforting, though, to learn he hasn’t changed, y’know?” she says, and his mother barks out a laugh, unexpectedly, and the unease in Ryan’s stomach settles. Colleen sets out a little spread of cookies, those Dutch butter ones that Ryan usually only sees at Christmas, and she even lets Ryan pick from the tea box, too, before stashing it back on top of the fridge.</p><p><br/>“You know,” Colleen says, as she flicks another page in the magazine, her eyes not even looking at the pages, “Ryan’s never brought a girl home to meet me. Not even in high school.”</p><p><br/>“Mom-“ Ryan moans, dropping his head into his hands. It’s true, but he doesn’t want to admit it, doesn’t want Pam to read into that too much. He hadn’t been serious enough about any girls in the past few years for the thought to even cross his mind, and back in high school and college it’d just seemed like such a hassle.</p><p><br/>He’s private about his family life, anyway, doesn’t talk about his parents much at all to anyone, and it’d taken a while for him to even mention their existence to Pam in the first place. He doesn’t want to think too deeply about that particular fact, what it means, that she’s here in his mother’s house, but he can already tell it’s going to keep him up tonight, far longer than it should.</p><p><br/>“You must be pretty special, for him to invite you here,” his mother continues. Pam, to her credit, doesn’t look too phased by this, and she reaches under the table stealthily, squeezing his knee.</p><p><br/>“I guess I am,” she says, shrugging, and Ryan knows he’s going to be up way past midnight tonight, rolling this whole conversation over in his head, but then Pam’s smiling softly at him, nibbling away at the little cookie in front of her, and he pushes it all to the back of his head for the time being.</p><p><br/>“Anyway, Ry, I have to tell you about Maureen- this woman, I swear, I don’t know how she even got her cosmetology license,” Colleen says, switching gears back to the salon. Ryan’s grateful for the distraction, the out, but Pam’s hand stays on his knee, and he’s surprised by how welcome he finds the warmth of it, how steadying it is against the low-grade anxiety that’s been fermenting in his stomach all evening.</p><p><br/>They stay a bit later than he usually does, finally ducking out a little past seven-thirty. His stomach is audibly rumbling as they climb into the car, loud even as the CD kicks on. Pam laughs, and she reaches over the console to pat his stomach lightly. “Dinner?”</p><p><br/>“Please,” Ryan whines, and then they’re both laughing at his quick answer. His shoulders feel a little lighter as he drives to the diner that’s halfway between their complexes, and he twines their hands together, bringing her knuckles up to his mouth as he pulls to a stoplight. She blushes a little at the contact, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of that, of the peachy pink that colors her face, at the fact that it’s there because of him.</p><p><br/>“Your mom’s great,” she says, and Ryan’s glad he can agree to that statement, that he’s telling the truth when he parrots it back to her. “She’s a lot like you.”</p><p><br/>“You have no idea,” he says. It’s quiet for a second in the car, and he thinks he can tell what Pam’s asking in the pause, an unspoken ‘I hope I get the chance to learn,’ a ‘I hope I get to know all the similarities, what makes you different.’ “She really liked you,” he says, to break the silence, but also to ease the tension he can feel hovering just above Pam’s head.</p><p><br/>It works, and she bites her lower lip to hold back a smile, even though the corners of her mouth betray her. “You think so?” she asks, and Ryan only nods, unable to detail it any further. He could point out the little moments that had illustrated his mother’s feelings, the hints dropped behind clipped sentences, but it feels like an invasion of his mother’s privacy; Pam’ll be able to pick her apart, anyway, see through Collen’s constructed visage soon enough that he doesn’t feel like he really needs to elaborate.</p><p><br/>She invites him to a Beesly family barbecue, as they’re picking at the last shreds of fries on their plates. The last one of the year, she says, and it’s not really a big deal but her extended family’s going to be there, so she gets it if he doesn’t want to go, she won’t be offended or anything.</p><p><br/>Ryan, so suddenly, wants nothing more than to meet her parents, to talk sports shop with her father, to wash the dishes with her mother as they clean up, to give piggy back rides to the little cousins she’d shown him pictures of a few weeks ago. It overtakes him so sharply that he pauses in the middle of her ramble, his fry forgotten halfway to his mouth.</p><p><br/>He can see it so clearly in his mind, relaxing in her parent’s backyard, can see himself melding so well into a family he doesn’t even really know yet, and he wants it, so, so badly. His silence must freak her out a little, though, because she starts rambling faster, her hands gesticulating in a barely controlled way that he recognizes as her edging towards anxiety, and he reaches out with his own to still them.</p><p><br/>“I’d love that,” he says, “for real. I can’t wait.” Pam’s eyes are little wet as she smiles at him, and he can tell she’s biting at the inside of her cheek.</p><p><br/>“That’s- great,” she stutters out, and the waitress dropping off the check is the only reason he doesn’t lean over the table to kiss her.</p><p><br/>He kisses her in the car, instead, and again at a stoplight, lost in it enough that it takes the car behind him laying on the horn to break them apart.</p><p>—</p><p>Michael announces that the Scranton branch is closing on accident, it seems, and the entire office is sent into a panic. Everyone’s scrambling, and questions are flying, but Dwight and Michael head to Wallace’s house- to do what, exactly, isn’t clear- and the office calms down a bit in their absence.</p><p><br/>No one does any work, of course, not when they think they’re going to be out of a job soon, and Meredith breaks out a stash of liquor bottles that she’s stowed away in her desk drawers and starts doling out shots. Ryan thinks that’s probably part of a larger problem, but he’s got a fifth of pretty solid whiskey in his hand, and he doesn’t really want to deal with Meredith’s problems, anyway, so he fails to mention it to anyone.</p><p><br/>It’s all in vain, in the end, because Jan strolls in a little after four and tells them that no, Stamford’s closing, and they’re going to absorb their branch. Ryan doesn’t feel much an emotion either way, really, doesn’t really give a shit if he’s working here or somewhere else or even back at the temp agency, but he can tell it’s been a stressful day on Pam, and they spend the night at that tavern near Carbondale. She’s kind of shocked at how little he’s rattled by the day, and when he points out he could have his desk cleaned out in five minutes and be wiped completely from the miasma of the office, her face gets a little tight. It passes, though, and when they part ways in the parking lot she’s noticeably more relaxed.</p><p><br/>The merger is all anyone talks about for the next two weeks. Ryan had known, in some theoretical sort of way, that Stamford was where Jim had disappeared to, but it’s still a jolt when he sees his name pop up during the meeting they have in preparation for the merger.</p><p><br/>Of course Gumby would come back. He spends the rest of the day in a vaguely annoyed fog, tapping at his keyboard harder than he needs to. Michael assures him he won’t lose his full time position, that’ll he’ll stay on as a salesman, but in all honesty, his job is the least of his worries. He hadn’t missed the slight shift in Pam, the deliberate avoidance on her part to talk about Halpert’s homecoming, and it was eating at him a little bit.</p><p><br/>He’d known they’d had a little back and forth, way back before Jim left, and way back before she had left Roy, but Ryan doesn’t know the specifics, the exacts of it, and that’s what’s worrying him most.</p><p><br/>He asks her about it the weekend before Stamford’s due to arrive, when her heads on his lap as they watch Chopped during an afternoon coffee break. Her feet are against the opposite arm of his couch, and she’s laying on her back as he slides his fingers through her hair, his other hand gripping his coffee mug like it’s his life support.</p><p><br/>“Are you excited about Halpert coming back?” he asks. The TV’s just cut to commercial, some shitty advert about insurance.</p><p><br/>“What do you mean?” she asks. Her tone’s even, but in a deliberate way, and he presses the mute button on the remote with a little more force than is probably necessary.</p><p><br/>“Listen,” he says, and he’s doing his best to keep his own tone even and fair. He’s not sure how well he’s doing. “I don’t- I don’t know exactly what happened with you guys, but I know it was weird right before and after he left, and you don’t have to tell me the details, but. But- I’m- I don’t want you to have feelings for him.” It all sort of tumbles out of him once he starts, rushing forward, and he takes a long sip from his coffee just to shut himself up.</p><p><br/>Pam’s quiet for a long moment, finally sitting up on the couch to face him, turning his chin a little so that he has to look her in the eyes. “Before he left,” she starts, and he’s suddenly terrified of what’s asked of her, doesn’t really want to hear what she’s going to say. “During the casino night, he kissed me. Up in the office. Spilled his whole heart out, told me how he felt, and we kissed. And-“ she pauses.</p><p><br/>Ryan’s stomach is on fire, with some sort of monstrous combination of jealousy towards past Halpert and shame for even asking her about this in the first place.<br/>“-and I didn’t feel the same way about him,” she continues, finally, and the fire dies a little bit, but not enough for him to be comfortable. “He was a great guy, but I just- I think, maybe at one point, I would’ve felt that way about him, but then he left, and it wasn’t worth entertaining the idea of it.</p><p><br/>“And I’m nervous about seeing him, I guess, because I don’t know how he feels or what the past few months have been like for him. Mostly because he used to be my best friend, before all that happened.”</p><p><br/>“I-“ Ryan starts to say, but Pam shakes her a head a little bit, and he clamps the thought down. This is the first obstacle they’ve had to deal with, the first rift that threatens them, and he really doesn’t want to lose her to it, to Halpert, or some twisted memory of him.</p><p><br/>“But I don’t have any sort of romantic feelings towards him,” she says, firmly, confidently- she’s trying to convince him of it, he realizes, not herself, because she already knows it as a truth, and his stomach cools, the fire dousing immediately.</p><p><br/>He feels a little silly, kind of, getting this worked up over fucking Jim Halpert, and he kisses her before he can say anything else to embarrass himself. She pulls back after a moment, pressing her forehead against his.</p><p><br/>“Do you feel better?” she asks, her voice just barely above a whisper.</p><p><br/>“Sorry,” he says, nodding, because he does, feels more secure now that Pam’s reassured him, and that annoys him, that he needed that reassurance in the first place.</p><p><br/>“Good,” she says, and she kisses him again before laying back down, her head resting back in his lap. He sips his coffee, slowly, and they finish their episode of Chopped, and he thinks that maybe he loves her- at least loves that she cared enough to be honest with him, to reassure him when he couldn’t really even muster the courage to ask for her too.</p><p>—</p><p>Halpert’s back on Monday, his lanky frame already hovering around Ryan’s desk by the time he and Pam get in. Pam gives him a wave, excited but restrained, and Ryan can feel the tension and uncertainty rolling off the two of them. It makes him unexpectedly moody, and he plops his work bag down in his chair with a huff, just as Halpert sets his own bag down on the chair.</p><p><br/>“Oh,” is all Jim says, and Ryan smiles cooly, shucking his jacket off.</p><p><br/>“I took your desk when you left,” he says by way of explanation, shouldering Gigantor out of the way so he can drape the coat over the back of his chair.</p><p><br/>“I just thought-“ Jim says, and he’s shoving his hands in his pockets awkwardly, shifting his weight. “If you want the desk, though, that’s fine, I’m sure there’s one in the annex-“</p><p><br/>“Should be,” Ryan says, keeping his voice measured; he’s trying to get under Halpert’s skin, but at the same time he doesn’t want to be overtly rude, doesn’t want Pam to be able to call him out on it.</p><p><br/>“Play nice, Ryan,” she warns anyway, her voice wafting from reception, and Ryan holds his hands up defensively, but he smiles, just enough to let her know he’s fine, he’s cool, he’s just kidding around. She sends him another warning look, and Ryan drops it all at once, folding himself into his- because it is his, still- desk chair. It’s not worth it to fuck around with Jim, not if it’s going to upset Pam, and he logs on to his desktop instead.</p><p><br/>“Um,” Jim says, somehow forgotten behind him- seriously, does he have to be that tall? Take up that much vertical space?- and Ryan shrugs in answer.</p><p><br/>Pam opens her mouth, to say what, he’s not sure, but then Michael’s in the doorway, and he’s beyond excited to see Jim back, almost tackling him with a crushing hug.<br/>“Wow!” Michael says, finally letting Jim go, and he’s babbling, something about having both his best friends back together again, something about what a ‘cool gang’ he and Jim and Ryan are going to be, and Ryan only just barely, barely keeps his groan inward.</p><p> </p><p>Halpert doesn’t get banished to the annex, to Ryan’s great dismay; the spare annex desk gets dragged out and added to his and Dwight’s desk clump, instead. Michael keeps popping out his office to talk to them, which is especially grating now that Jim’s pretending to entertain Michael’s ideas; Ryan usually just throws out a dry comment and Michael squeezes out a laugh and disappears back into his office for another hour or so.</p><p><br/>Today, though, the clock barely hits ten-thirty and Michael’s already strolling over to their desk clump for the sixth time. He’s telling Jim some sort of joke, some sort of bastardized version of a George Carlin bit, and Dwight’s trying to join in, fighting for Michael’s attention, and Ryan just can’t suffer it anymore.</p><p><br/>He leans back in his chair, around Michael, catching Pam’s eyes; she’s already looking at him, her face scrunched in sympathy while she holds the phone to her ear. Ryan folds his hands into prayer, pleading wordlessly with her to send him some sort of reprieve. She holds up a jellybean, the pale yellow pineapple ones he loves, her eyebrows raised in question, and Ryan nods once.</p><p><br/>She tosses it, standing a little bit for more leverage, and Ryan catches it in his mouth with practiced ease, grinning as he turns back to his computer. Michael catches this interaction, because he’s obsessed with Ryan for whatever reason, and he whoops, interrupting his own conversation.</p><p><br/>“One point Howard!” he cries, doing a whisper-mock of stadium cheering.</p><p><br/>“Not how the scoring works,” Ryan says, not even bothering to look up from his monitor. He swallows his candy and swivels his chair again, where Pam’s already got another one ready for him.</p><p><br/>She doesn’t break a beat from her phone call as she tosses it, and Ryan catches it again, almost effortlessly. He has a full view of Halpet’s face this time as he settles back to his monitor, and his chest swells with a little puff of pride at the look on it, which irritates him more than Halpert’s presence had. He’s annoyed that he cares enough to see Halpert looking slightly put out, slightly jealous at the obvious camaraderie between him and Pam, and he makes a conscious effort to look disinterested at Jim’s discomfort.</p><p><br/>“You two are close,” Jim says, flicking his pencil tip between Ryan’s desk and Pam’s. “Gotta say, didn’t expect that.”</p><p><br/>“They’re dating,” Dwight cuts in, flipping his tie over his shoulder, pulling his personal shredder out from under desk. Of course Dwight needs to shred today. Like it already wasn’t enough of a terrible Monday. Dwight’s tone is measured, though, purposely even-keeled, and Ryan knows he’s just trying to stir more malcontent between him and Halpert. He refuses to buy into it, sure Dwight has some sort of plan attached to this that ends with Dwight the singular salesman at the desk clump, and Ryan enters a few more numbers into his spreadsheet instead of bothering to respond.</p><p><br/>Halpert takes the bait, though, and Ryan bites down on his own tongue as Jim makes a soft ‘oh!’ in surprise. “You’re dating!” he says, with the kind of casual tone that only comes from being sprung with news you didn’t particularly want to hear. Ryan nods, once, still not taking his eyes off his spreadsheet, and Michael takes the reins in his silence.</p><p><br/>“Yeah, yeah, Beesley and Howard! Two hottest people in the office, boning,” he says, giggling.</p><p><br/>“Please stop,” Ryan drones, pecking away at a new line.</p><p><br/>“Ryan doesn’t like when I talk about him and Pam doing it,” Michael says in a stage whisper, blocking his mouth with his hand, like that’s going to prevent Ryan from hearing.</p><p><br/>“Stop talking,” Ryan says, at the same time Jim laughs out an awkward, “don’t need to know the details.”</p><p><br/>Pam has the unfortunate timing to hang up the phone then, and Michael loops her in to the conversation against everyone’s will, all of them clearly uncomfortable. It isn’t until Pam asks him about Carol that they can get Michael off the topic, and he luckily doesn’t revisit it for the rest of the day.</p><p><br/>Ryan does learn at lunch that Halpert’s dating one of the other Stamford transfers, the petite olive-skinned woman who’s name he didn’t bother to learn at first. She introduces herself as Karen, and the four of them- Ryan, Pam, Jim and Karen- have an awkward lunch, the kind that sort of drains the energy out of him as he forces himself to be sociable.</p><p><br/>She’s nice enough, Ryan guesses, a little more serious than Jim is, which is probably a good thing. He needs someone to bring him down, add a note of sincerity to his jock persona that he’s still carrying.</p><p><br/>Ryan doesn’t miss Jim’s gaze as he slings an arm around the back of Pam’s chair, though, his dopey brown eyes lingering on where Ryan’s hand splays against her back for just a second too long for Ryan to be comfortable with. Pam, in turn, doesn’t seem to notice at all when Karen kisses Jim goodbye, leaving the break room table to wash out her dishes.</p><p><br/>It settles that fire in Ryan’s chest again. He’s not sure when he developed a need for reassurance, for Pam to show him that she’s committed to him; certainly recently, he thinks, because he never would have gave a shit if Kelly had done any of this. It’s new, and a little foreign to him, but then Pam’s ruffling his hair as she stands to leave, mussing it in the exact way that she knows he pretends to hate but secretly loves, and he doesn’t even get the chance to get anxious about the situation.</p><p> </p><p>Pam had picked him up that morning, and he catches Jim’s eye on accident as he slides into her stupid Yaris that evening. He and Karen had driven separate, which is interesting enough to note but not interesting enough for him to actually think about further. Halpert frowns slightly as he shuts the door, and Ryan’s not sure what to do with that, either.</p><p><br/>“Dinner?” he asks instead, kissing Pam quickly over the center console.</p><p><br/>“I can make stir fry,” she says, and she does, and Ryan curls up with Spud and her on the couch for an hour or so afterwords, Halpert forgotten in favor the peace and warmth in front of him.</p><p> </p><p>—</p><p>“It’s casual,” Pam’s voice is crackly down the receiver, the phone pinched between his cheek and shoulder as he flips aimlessly through his closet. “Jeans are fine, honestly. Just dress like you do when we go to Al’s.”</p><p><br/>Ryan scrubs at his face, sighing. He’s trying to impress her parents without actually looking like he’s trying, and he’s finding absolutely nothing suitable in his closet, even with her constant reminders that it’s a barbecue in her parent’s backyard. “What about that button-up I have, that blue plaid one? The not-quite-flannel,” he asks, pulling it out of his closet. It’s a little wrinkly, but he can hang it in the bathroom and run the shower for a bit. The steam should take care of it.</p><p><br/>She makes a non-committal noise, and he tosses it back into his closet. “Just wear that black longsleeve and those jeans I like,” she says.</p><p><br/>“The ones that are too tight?” he asks, rooting through his dresser to find them. They’re a faded mid-wash, and even if they are a little too slim on him, he has to admit the wash does look good with black.</p><p><br/>“Hey, Ryan?” she asks, instead of confirming which jeans she means, and he has to pin the phone again to pull them on. He hums in response, focusing more on tugging the jeans up than on her voice. They’re almost a skinny jean, really, but they do make his ass look good, and he ponders his reflection for a minute, wondering if he should really be trying to look sexy for this.</p><p><br/>“This is the first family event that I’m bringing someone to that’s not, y’know, Roy,” she says, and the delicate tone of her voice refocuses him. Roy’s not a sore subject between the two of them- at least not one that he feels like he needs to be extra sensitive about or tiptoe around- but it didn’t occur to him that that might not be the case when it comes to her family.</p><p><br/>“Did they like Roy?” he asks, instead of what he really wants to ask. He’s suddenly twice as nervous; he hadn’t considered that her family might still like Roy, might still be pushing for them to get back together.</p><p><br/>“Some of them really did,” she says, “and, I mean, we were together for a long time. They got used to him being around, and it’s going to be weird for some of them that you’re there instead, especially my little cousins.”</p><p><br/>“Okay?” he says, and his voice lifts at the end against his wishes. Pam must hear it, must realize what he’s getting at.</p><p><br/>“I’m just warning you, there might some … inappropriate questions, is all,” she explains, and it does make him feel a little better, in a weird way. They stay on the phone a little longer, the conversation drifting to mindless chatter, but she bids him goodbye close to eleven, promising to pick him up within the half hour.</p><p><br/>He’s lounging on his balcony when Pam knocks on the door, and they get distracted for a few minutes, him pressing her up against the wall of his hallway. She’s pliable in his arms, sun-warm from the car, and he’s not sure how he’s going to keep his hands off her all afternoon. He almost convinces her to pull the car over on the way so they can fool around a little bit, but then they’re pulling into Pam’s parents’ driveway and he’s nervous again.</p><p><br/>They don’t go through the house, just walk straight through the back gate, where there’s more people than he can count, gripping beers and laughing and crowding around a grill. There’s a number of younger kids darting around the yard, and a few dogs stationed by a table heaping with food, yawning lazily.</p><p><br/>It’s a little overwhelming at first, if he’s honest; his dad has a large family, but he’s never met most of them, and on his mother’s side it’s just her, his miserable aunt, and a weird uncle that had fucked off into the recesses of Vermont when he was young. He’s been in crowds, sure, but they were mostly his frat parties and, more recently, parties at Rex and Jared’s. He’s not really sure how to handle himself in front of a large family like this, and it becomes painfully obvious to him.</p><p><br/>A woman- who has to be Pam’s mother, with how similar they look- is beaming at them, weaving across the backyard to them. “Hello!” she cries, and she wraps Pam up in a firm hug before turning to him and doing the same. “You must be Ryan!” she says, squeezing his arm as she pulls away. It’s not uncomfortable- has the opposite effect, really, makes him feel welcomed- and he ducks his head, nodding.</p><p><br/>“Yeah, it’s nice to meet you,” he says, and then her father’s there and the scene repeats. Both of her parents are genial, full of bright, easy smiles, and Pam’s grinning at him, too. Plates of food are pushed into his hands (‘You’re so skinny, please, take some more, there’s plenty’), and he’s introduced to more people than he can even make an attempt to remember.</p><p><br/>Pam finds them a spot at a half-empty picnic table, and they eat with her sister Penny and her husband Todd, both of whom are full of the same kind energy Pam exudes.</p><p><br/>He relaxes more and more as the afternoon wears on, and as the the sun starts to dip lower in the sky, he finds himself with a beer and curled up against Pam, watching a few of her relatives build a bonfire.</p><p><br/>“I thought you said this wasn’t a big deal,” he says, pointing to where there’s a teepee of logs beginning to form.</p><p><br/>“It’s not,” she shrugs. “It’s the last barbecue of the year, but it’s not really that grand of a party.”</p><p><br/>“There were four different kinds of cake,” he challenges, and Pam laughs, one of those full bodied ones where her head tips back.</p><p><br/>“Alright,” she says, “I’ll give you that one. Maybe I downplayed it a little. Good day, though, right?” she asks, and it’s not rhetorical. She tips her beer bottle towards him, and he knows she’s checking in with him, asking him for a real answer, making sure he really did have a good day and that he’s happy.</p><p><br/>Ryan has absolutely no idea what he did to deserve her. No idea what deity he pleased, what soul debt he paid off to be here, in this moment, with her, but whatever it was he’d do it again a thousand times over.</p><p><br/>“Good day,” he agrees, tapping the neck of his own bottle against hers. He can’t help but kiss her, just a chaste peck before he pulls away again. The sun is just low enough in the sky that it paints everything golden, and it turns her hair a brassy copper. She brings her hand to rest on the nape of his neck, her touch peach-fuzz-soft, and he really thinks he loves her.</p><p><br/>A tiny hand suddenly comes to rest on his knee, and he glances down to see one of her younger cousins, a dark haired eight year old named Kathleen, leaning between them. “You’re not Roy,” she says.</p><p><br/>It’s the first time anyone’s brought it up all day, besides Pam’s warning earlier, and he’s not really sure how to respond. He’s never been great with kids, though not really necessarily bad, and he doesn’t quite know how to talk to an eight year old.</p><p><br/>“I’m not,” is all he says, and Kathleen purses her lips.</p><p><br/>“Kathleen,” Pam chides, her voice a warning all on it’s own. She’d make a good mom, a part of Ryan’s brain muses, disconnected from what’s happening in front of him. Kathleen’s not phased, in any case, and she crosses her arms, obviously mimicking a stance she’s seen adults take.</p><p><br/>“Well, he’s not,” she says. “Uncle Roy used to let play truck driver in his truck.”</p><p><br/>It’s such a little kid thought, one of those things kid get stuck on without any real reason to, that Ryan doesn’t have any sort of comeback for it, doesn’t know how to reassure her that he’s just as fun as Roy must’ve been.</p><p><br/>Pam fixes her with a look, one so stern that he’s sure she must’ve babysit for Kathleen a number of times, and Kathleen only challenges her for a moment before she drops her crossed little arms and rolls her eyes skyward.</p><p><br/>“I’m sorry, Ryan” she says, and Ryan can’t do anything other than accept her apology. He’s baffled by the interaction, but then Kathleen’s already skipped off to play with one of the dogs, shrieking along with her brothers.</p><p><br/>Pam’s uncle gets the bonfire started, and he lets the Kathleen interaction drop from his mind, content to sit there, wrapped up in a blanket with Pam, their faces warm from the flames. Her parents send them home with tupperware full of leftovers, stacks of steak and appetizers and cake, and for the first time in his life, Ryan has to remember to return containers to someone.</p><p><br/>Pam stays over that night, and there’s a wild glee to their motions, like a weight they were ignoring was finally lifted from them.</p><p><br/>She’s up before him the next morning, and when he finally rolls out of the bed, yawning, she’s out on the balcony, talking to someone on the phone. He pays little attention as he pours himself a cup of coffee, scratching his stomach, but he catches his name a few times, and it piques his interest.</p><p><br/>He pulls the carafe off of the warmer, her voice floating through where she’s left the sliding door cracked open. He walks slowly, not wanting to disrupt her and also trying to eavesdrop a little bit.</p><p><br/>“… I think so too,” she’s saying, her shoulders shrugging up to her ears. “He’s really sweet, even if he pretends not to be. I’m really happy.”</p><p><br/>Ryan hovers for a second or two longer by the door, his heart jackhammering in his chest. To know that she’s talking about their relationship to other people- to tell other people how happy she is in their relationship- makes a bubble of content flare in his chest. He’s in this for the long haul, he realizes, and it settles a fear he didn’t realize he had that she feels the same.</p><p><br/>He finally steps out onto the balcony, topping off her coffee mug and leaving the carafe on the table top. She smiles at him as she listens to whoever’s on the other end, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. She only wears them in the morning, before she gets ready, and he loves that he gets to know that.</p><p><br/>“I’ll tell him, for sure,” she says into the phone, and then after a beat, “he actually just got up, he says good morning.”</p><p><br/>“Morning,” he calls, loud enough for the receiver to pick up his voice. Pam grins again, nods a few times, and says a few goodbyes before hanging up.</p><p><br/>“That was my mom,” she says. “She says hi, and that she loves you, and that you’re invited to our house for Thanksgiving, and that she’s glad I found someone who makes me happy.”</p><p><br/>It’s a sort of sincerity that Ryan can’t process correctly this early in the morning, and all he can do is smile dopily at Pam, kissing her good morning like he hasn’t seen her in days.</p><p><br/>“You make me happy, too,” he says, quietly, and he presses the words into her mouth before pulling away, sipping his coffee. It’s not an ‘I love you,’ not exactly, but she knows what he means, and that’s enough for him.</p><p>—</p><p>“Alright!” Michael claps his hands together excitedly, like he’s announcing they’re all getting raises, which Ryan knows won’t be the case. Michael’s gathered all the salesmen in the conference room, unbridled glee in his eyes as he passes out manila folders to them. “We’re doing tag team sales calls today!”</p><p><br/>It’s not the worst news he could’ve announced, really, and Ryan actually finds he prefers it over a number of things Michael’s said in the past. He flicks his manila folder open; there’s a few contracts in it and a printed MapQuest sheet, which Ryan snorts at. Michael refuses to use Google Maps, no matter how times Ryan sings its praises.</p><p><br/>“Tag-teaming?” Karen asks, glancing questioningly to Jim. Her voice is some mixture of unsure and annoyed; the Stamford branch had been slightly smaller, Jim’s mentioned, with only three salesmen total. Scranton, on the other hand, had routinely done two person sales calls, even when there’d only been four salesman in the office. Now, with seven of them, it was almost a necessity.</p><p><br/>“Tag-teams!” Michael says, not phased a lick by Karen’s misgivings. “Now, teams are as follows, and no swapping,” he warns, fixing each of them with a glare- most of it ends up directed at Dwight, which is deserved, Ryan thinks, especially after he ended up kneeling in manure for an hour the last time he went on a ‘sales call’ with Dwight.</p><p><br/>Michael rattles off down the list, pointing to each of them as he calls their names. “Phyllis, you’re with Karen. Dwight, you’ve got Andy. Jim’s with Ryan, and then Stanley’s with me!”</p><p><br/>“Great,” Stanley sighs, pencilling in another row of crossword. The disappointment in his voice is nothing to the irritation Ryan feels. Everyone else is clamoring, complaining to Michael about why they can’t be in that particular team, but Ryan doesn’t even bother, just slinks out of the conference room and pulls on his jacket.<br/>Jim’s close behind him, not bothering to bitch to Michael, either, and Gigantor hovers awkwardly as Ryan drops a quick goodbye to kiss to Pam. She wishes them both luck, and he can tell she means it equally to both of them. He wishes she didn’t, but then again, he wishes he wasn’t being forced to share a car and commission with Halpert, either, so.</p><p><br/>It was Pam’s turn to drive that morning, so Halpert drives them, which piles on another layer of annoyance to Ryan’s rapidly declining mood. Halpert has the control now, it feels like, with both of them folded into his- admittedly nice, actually- Saab 9-3.</p><p><br/>They drive in silence for a few miles, not even turning the radio on to break the tension; the only words they speak are the few directions Ryan calls out from his MapQuest printout.</p><p><br/>“You know anything about this client?” Jim asks, finally, as he turns onto a back road. The client’s outside Scranton, a little north, almost towards Binghamton.</p><p><br/>“Sort of,” Ryan admits. He doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t even pretend to. Halpert’s not going to show him up with client knowledge, isn’t going to patronize Ryan, not today. He picks at a stray thread on his slacks. He wishes he hadn’t worn these ones today. They’re a little baggier than the rest of his pants, and they make him look ever so slightly ramshackle.</p><p><br/>Halpert clears his throat, tapping his finger lightly against the steering wheel to some imaginary beat. Ryan wishes he wouldn’t. The thread’s still unraveling, right in the crease on the front of his slacks. It’s too long, too noticeable, and he pulls it taut to break it just as Jim speaks.</p><p><br/>“Look,” he says, his tone more firm and annoyed than Ryan’s ever heard it. “I don’t know what I did to you, don’t know what your issue is with me, but like it or not, we have to work as a team on this. So, you know, I’d appreciate a little effort here.”</p><p><br/>It occurs to Ryan that Jim wasn’t trying to condescend him earlier, that he’d been asking for some advice on the client because Halpert actually didn’t know too much about them. Ryan would feel embarrassed, if he let himself, but he scratches at his neck, instead. “They use two paper suppliers, us and Atlantic Paper Supply. Atlantic is undercutting our prices slightly, and they’re considering switching fully to them,” he says. “If we offer them free shipping, and make an effort to point out how much more personable and effective our customer service is compared to Atlantic, we can probably convince them to switch fully to us, instead.”</p><p><br/>“Okay,” Jim says, and they both lapse into silence again. Ryan finally gets the thread pulled out of his pants, a single black strand, and he balls it up into his pocket. Jim starts tapping again, back to his imaginary rhythm.</p><p><br/>“It’s because of Pam,” Ryan says, suddenly. He hates that he’s said it out loud, because now he’s going to have to explain it, and sure enough, Jim’s looking at him, his eyebrows furrowed.</p><p><br/>“What are you talking about?” he asks.</p><p><br/>“Why I don’t like you.”</p><p><br/>“You don’t like me because of Pam?” Jim asks, and Ryan can tell he’s only confusing him more, and he sighs loudly, more at himself for starting this conversation than at anything else.</p><p><br/>“No, Pam’s- Pam adores you, won’t shut up about you,” he says, and when Jim visibly relaxes at that, Ryan has to quietly suck in a breath to calm himself. He counts to five, breathes it out, and continues. “She told me what happened, though. Back in May.”</p><p><br/>“Oh,” Jim says. His voice is colorless, oddly thin in the small cab of the car.</p><p><br/>“Yeah.”</p><p><br/>“Listen, that was- that was months ago now, and Karen and I very happy together,” Jim says, and it’s defensive, almost, like Jim’s trying to explain it to himself as much as he is Ryan.</p><p><br/>“Good,” Ryan says. “So are Pam and I.”</p><p><br/>“Good.”</p><p><br/>The car falls into a stifling quiet. It settles over them like a thick blanket,neither of them breaking it until they stroll into the client’s office, plastered smiles on each of their faces.</p><p>—</p><p>They make the sale, and it’s a big get for the company; even with splitting the commission with Halpert, it’s going to be a sizable bonus in Ryan’s check, and they both climb back into the car afterwords with high spirits.</p><p><br/>“We were on fire,” Jim says, holding his palm up, and Ryan, against his judgement, high fives him. They really had been, if he was honest; he’s loathe to admit it, but him and Halpert had played off each other well, both of them somehow finding the right cadence and falling into step beside each other all the way through the sale.</p><p><br/>The client- a Mr. Charles Denshaw, owner of a college catalogue and promotional flyer business- had been charmed by them both, and they’d all made genial jokes and easy conversation as they’d convinced him to go with Dunder Mifflin exclusively. Michael was going to be a thrilled, and, by extension, so would Jan and corporate.</p><p><br/>“That was a good idea, to call up Kelly right away as well the Atlantic customer service,” Ryan admits. The Atlantic line had played bland muzak for the entire meeting, mentioning every few seconds that their ‘call was very important’ to them; Kelly, by comparison, had picked up on the second ring, more than excited to hear Jim on the other line. Denshaw’d been highly impressed with it, and that more than anything had allowed them to close the sale.</p><p><br/>“Thanks,” Jim says, and Ryan can tell he’s actually touched by the compliment. “Dwight and I used to do that, back when he and I had to do tag-teams regularly.” Ryan just nods, not sure how to respond to that.</p><p><br/>Halpert flicks on the stereo this time, on the ride back, handing Ryan his iPod. “Pick some celebration music,” he says, and Ryan’s smart enough to recognize this as a sign of peace, but he isn’t sure how he feels about.</p><p><br/>He’s got a great music taste, though, Ryan muses, scrolling through the artists Halpert’s got downloaded. “Metric? Arcade Fire?” he asks, a little stunned to find how similar they are. Jim seems shocked too, raising his eyebrows.</p><p><br/>“You know them?” he asks, and Ryan just nods, continuing to scroll. His finger hovers for a moment over the Silversun Pickups, but he decides he doesn’t want to hear Halpert butcher them, and he skips it, finally settling on MGMT. ‘Kids’ starts to blare through the speakers, and he finds that he’s enjoying himself immensely as they blast the album on their way back to the office.</p><p><br/>Michael, as predicted, is beyond excited to hear they’ve landed such a big contract. He and Stanley landed their own sale, as did Karen and Phyllis, and Michael starts yammering about keeping these teams as his ‘ace in hole’. Dwight and Andy didn’t do as hot- they’d only managed to make sure their client renewed their contract- but this doesn’t really seem to matter to Michael, and he pops open a bottle of cheap champagne anyway, passing around small glasses to the entire staff.</p><p><br/>“Looks like you and Jim got along alright,” Pam says, and Ryan shrugs. He can see Jim and Karen from where he is, both of them giggling over something at her desk, and he takes a sip from his glass. He can tell it’s important to Pam that he and Jim get along, and even though that’s beyond aggravating to him, he allows himself to note that he really did enjoy being on the call with him today, had enjoyed his company.</p><p><br/>“We’re actually not that bad of a team,” he says, and Pam smiles knowingly, understanding what he’s trying to say to her. That he’ll tolerate Halpert, that he’ll even let himself have fun with Gigantor, but but they’re never going to be best friends. She kisses him, lightly and quickly, in a wordless thanks for him trying to get along with Jim.</p><p><br/>Across the room, Jim’s grinning at Karen, her pretending to be offended by something he’s said, and Ryan loops his fingers through Pam’s. He can be polite to Jim, cordial- friendly, even- as long as it makes Pam happy.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Very sorry for the month-long delay in updates! I wish this was more exciting of a chapter for me to finally update with, but thank you all again for sticking by this! Light angst is coming soon (somehow I've ruined my timeline and I have Beach Day taking place in January? and I'm in the middle of rewriting/fixing that) but until then, I hope some wholesome cuteness is enough.<br/>Song title is from The Strokes' 'Someday'</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. follow the lines and wonder why</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Karen clears her throat after a while, putting her fork down gently, and Ryan’s already regretting let her join him for lunch before she’s even started talking. “Do… do you ever get the vibe that, like, there’s something more between Pam and Jim?” she asks.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You’re spending Thanksgiving with Pam’s family?” his mother’s tone is light, almost distracted, and he thinks maybe she’s actually reading one of the magazine articles, for once. He’d stopped over for usual Monday visit, though this one had been more boring than most; Colleen didn’t really have much to say today, not even any complaints about Maureen, and he’d been planning an early escape for the last ten minutes or so. </p><p><br/> “Yeah, her mother invited me a few weeks back,” he says, shrugging. Thanksgiving has never been that big of a deal in the Howard family; doubly so after his parents split. He and his mother had spent his high school Thanksgivings eating a regular dinner together before he’d retreated back up to his room, and he hadn’t even bothered to come home for them during college. The past two years, when he and his mother weren’t speaking, he’d just eaten some takeout leftovers in front of the TV. He didn’t pity himself for it, really, and he enjoyed the few days off of relaxation without any sort of pressure. </p><p><br/> He still hasn’t quite figured out how he feels about spending it with the Beesly’s this year. It’ll be pretty small, Pam’s assured him, just her parents, her sister and her family, and her brother in law’s parents, but Ryan’s already had to go and buy a new sweater to wear so he can look nice for an evening of sitting on their living room couch.  </p><p><br/> His mother just nods, sipping her tea, still gazing at the magazine. He knows she’s not offended, and he thinks she has her own boyfriend that she’ll spend it with, anyway- he can’t confirm it, but he’s seen her phone light up with messages and calls from a contact that has an emoticon heart attached to the name. </p><p><br/> “It’s pretty serious, you know, to spend a holiday like this with her family,” Colleen says, and Ryan realizes where the conversation is going. He doesn’t want to have this talk with his mother, and especially not as he sits here in her kitchen with a cold mug of tea, still in his work button up. </p><p><br/> “I guess,” he says tightly, and he can feel himself regressing to how he used to be in high school, how he would avoid conversations with her by just completely shutting down. He forces himself to be better, to not close himself off completely, make an effort to share his life and himself with his mother. “We’re- I mean- it’s a pretty serious relationship, yeah.” </p><p><br/> “I’m glad,” Colleen says. “She’s lovely. Very kind,” and what she really means is that she’s proud of Ryan- he can read the tone of her voice, parse what she’s actually trying to tell him. This how they’ve always communicated, how they’ve talked around the really important things, veiling them in non-sequiturs and forcing the other to dig through them like a bastardized archaeologist. </p><p><br/> “She’s great,” Ryan agrees, and what he really means is that he’s proud of himself, too. Proud that he’s held onto this relationship, that he cares this much about Pam, that he’s allowed himself to be comfortable in how committed he’s found himself. In how much of a future he’s planning for with her. </p><p><br/> His mother looks up at him finally, folding her hands together over her magazine pages. Her eyes are slightly watery, and Ryan squirms under their gaze; this isn’t what they do, isn’t how they talk to each other, in this head-on sort of way. She doesn’t say anything, though, just reaches out across the table and brushes his hair back a little bit, and then she’s back to her magazine, like the last few minutes didn’t happen.  </p><p><br/> He’s grateful for that, and he steers the conversation firmly to the left, detailing a pissing contest between Dwight and Andy, something about how both of them are vying for Michael’s devotion. Colleen laughs, and she shares pictures with him of a particularly disastrous haircut she’d had to fix, a botched home job by a woman who’d dropped out of cosmetology school. </p><p><br/> He ducks out a half hour later and stops to pick up a pizza on his way home, which he eats over the sink like a goblin. Pam calls him just before he turns in for bed, and he chatters with her for longer than he means to. She’s excited about Thursday, keeps mentioning how she can’t wait for him to try her mother’s green beans or how her sister’s gotten a dye job that really doesn’t suit her complexion, and for all his misgivings, he finds himself excited for the holiday too. </p><p><br/> He lets her go close to ten, once he hears her start yawning, and his new sweater catches his eye as he crawls into his own bed. He’d been annoyed when he’d bought it, had thought the deep navy of it didn’t really look right on him, and he didn’t really understand why he had to dress up just to eat turkey in a stuffy dining room. It looks different in the dark of his room, and he slides back out of bed to throw his black jeans and one of his nicer button ups on the chair with it, a pale green one that he thinks’ll look nice against the richness of the navy. </p><p><br/> So what if it’s just someone’s house, he reasons, yanking the covers up above his chin. He can let himself look nice for no reason. </p><p><br/> Well, not no reason, he admits, already drifting off, a vision of Pam smiling at him, seated at a dinner table full of her family swimming behind his eyelids.</p><p>--</p><p> He stays over at Pam’s on Wednesday night, his Thanksgiving dinner clothes folded neatly into an overnight bag. Thursday morning dawns bright and cold, with that illusive sort of warmth filtering down from the sky, the kind that never really reaches the ground. </p><p><br/> Pam’s buzzing with excitement by the time he stumbles into the kitchen. She’s got the parade on mute on the TV, a playlist he’d made her crackling out of a speaker on low volume as she fights with the standing mixer. </p><p><br/> Ryan’s not even dressed, only wearing a pair of loose sweatpants, and he scratches at his bare chest as he kisses her good morning. “What’re you making?” he yawns, shuffling towards the coffee maker. </p><p><br/> “An apple pie and some chocolate chip cookies,” she says, and she’s got a spoonful of  cookie batter stretched out to him when he turns around. She’s got flour in her hair and a swipe of his across her cheek, and she’s still wearing her glasses, grinning expectantly at him, wiggling the spoon. He’s sure, in that moment, that he loves her, and it ripples out from his chest, through his limbs. </p><p><br/> The batter’s good, and he scoops her up into a hug after he eats it, kissing up and down her neck. He doesn’t know how to tell her, doesn’t know how to say it, even though he’s pretty sure she knows already- Pam knows most things about him, even things Ryan tries his best to ignore about himself. </p><p><br/> He helps her as he drinks his coffee, or at least as well as he can, and she trusts him enough to take the last batch of cookies out of the oven on his own as she hops in the shower. He jumps in after her, and when he pads back into her room for his clothes, his hair still dripping, he notices that she’s ironed it for him. </p><p><br/> She’s finishing up her makeup in the bedroom vanity as he stands behind her, smoothing out his shirt collar, and the domesticity of it all- getting ready together, sharing a mirror, coexisting in the space like they’re equal inhabitants of it- none of it’s lost on him.</p><p><br/> Her reflection grins at his, unbidden and completely warm, and he wraps her up in another hug, placing careful kisses along her face and her neck, mindful not to smear her makeup. </p><p><br/> “You look really, really nice,” she says, and she smooths her hands across his chest. He looks better than he did in the Lord &amp; Taylor dressing room, at any rate, and the pale green of his button up offsets the deep tones of the navy just enough to keep the sweater from looking wrong on him. </p><p><br/> If he looks nice, though, Pam looks radiant, in a black shift dress with a peter pan collar- he’s not entirely sure what it means, but it’s what Colleen called it when he described it to her a few days ago. Her hair is down, but pinned back from her face, and she’s got on a muted lipstick. </p><p><br/> He catches her hand as it reaches his shoulder, taking it back to his mouth and kissing the knuckles. Pam blushes, color high in her cheeks, bright even in the sunlight of her bedroom, and she leans forward to press a feather-light kiss to his lips. </p><p><br/> “Ready?” she asks, and he nods, brushing a kiss of his own against her forehead as she pulls away. </p><p><br/> The easy, buzzing softness of the morning carries over as he drives them to her parents’ house, the radio playing at a lower volume than usual. He holds her hand the entire drive, his thumb tracing small circles around her knuckles. She has him carry the pie in, the giant plate of cookies teetering in her own hands as she kicks the car door shut with her shoe. </p><p><br/> Helene and William are all smiles to see them, giant grins and crushing hugs, and it takes Ryan less time than he thought it would for him to feel comfortable in their house. Penny and Todd arrive not long after they do, both of their kids dozy from the ride in from Philadelphia. </p><p><br/> Ryan’s not especially thrilled about the food, doesn’t particularly like turkey or stuffing or squash, but he eats a little of everything all the same. He’s not really stuffed, not in the way they always show on TV when people comically overeat during Thanksgiving dinner, but he’s comfortably full by the time Helene brings the dessert over.</p><p> <br/> He helps Helene with the dishes, flicking water off his hands at Pam’s face while she helps dry. Pam squeals out a firm ‘Ryan!’ every time he does it, but she’s laughing hard with him, swatting him playful with her towel, and all he can do in response is grin back. </p><p><br/> After the leftovers are packed up and the dishes set back in the cabinet, they settle into the living room couches, William patting his bloated belly as he flops onto the cushions. The TV plays some sort of holiday special, something Ryan’s not concerned with paying attention to, and he and Pam mostly ignore it in favor of playing with the Bratz dolls Pam’s six year old niece had brought with her. </p><p><br/> “You can be Yasmin,” Molly instructs, with all the authority in the world, shoving a battered-looking doll into Pam’s hands.  </p><p><br/> “What’s Yasmin like?” Pam asks, and it’s something Ryan wouldn’t have thought to do, to ask for the kid’s version of the world. </p><p><br/> “She’s really pretty, and she’s really nice,” Molly says, and she hands Pam an outfit for her doll, a mismatched top and skirt. “She’s a lot like you, Aunt Pam.” </p><p><br/> Pam nods sagely, like everything the kid is saying is the Absolute Truth, and she picks up a brush, running it gently through the doll’s hair. “Can Ryan have a doll, too?” she asks. It’s not mocking- Ryan genuinely wanted to play with her niece, and he knows this is her way of looping him in, including him with Molly’s permission. </p><p><br/> Molly ponders this for a split second, tapping her chin with a thick finger, but she nods, rooting through the tote bag next to her. </p><p><br/> “Uncle Ryan can be Jade,” she says, and she sticks the doll feet-first towards Ryan. <em>Uncle Ryan</em> echoes loudly in his ears, and it takes him a beat longer than it should to take the doll from Molly. </p><p><br/> “Thanks, Mol,” he says, his voice thick with emotion he didn’t know he felt. Pam presses her lips into a flat line, glancing at him sideways, still brushing Yasmin’s hair. Uncle Ryan. He’s never been an uncle before, never been called one- he’s only vaguely considered fatherhood, and he’s certainly never been with a woman long enough be considered an uncle to her nieces and nephews. </p><p><br/> It’s a nicer feeling than he ever could’ve imagined. Molly had thrown it out so casually, so mindlessly, but Pam can tell how much it’s throwing Ryan off his game. </p><p><br/> “Why don’t you tell Ry- Uncle Ryan a little bit about Jade,” she says, and Ryan’s heart stutters in his chest as she corrects herself to add the title. Molly starts jabbering, and Ryan does his best to listen, he really does.</p><p>—</p><p> Pam comes back to his apartment with him that night. He cracks open a bottle of wine and brings it to bed with them, a white zinfandel he’d bought about a month back, and he puts on a CD at a low volume. </p><p><br/> Ryan’s lounging against his pillows, propped up but not quite sitting, his glass resting on his bare chest; Pam’s sitting up opposite him, wearing nothing but an old concert shirt of his, her hair fully down. She raises her eyebrows at him as she takes a long sip, shaking her head. </p><p><br/> “You’re an uncle now,” she says, and Ryan grins before he can stop himself. She giggles, a little tipsy. “You did good today, though, for real, with her. I know it was probably a lot, for her to spring that on you, and I know sometimes stuff like sets your alarm bells off, but-“ </p><p><br/> “I love you,” Ryan says, interrupting her, and she chokes on nothing. He sits up a little more, setting his wine glass down on his bedside table. “I love you,” he repeats. </p><p><br/> Pam stares at him for a long moment, her mouth open the tiniest bit, and she leans forward to put her own glass down. The stem’s barely made solid contact with the wood of his night table before she pulls him in for a bruising kiss, one full of desperation and love and promise and all the things Ryan wishes he had the courage to express to her. </p><p><br/> “I love you, too,” she whispers, pulling back just enough to get the words out, her lips never fully leaving his mouth. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” </p><p><br/> And he’s not sure who’s saying it, not sure if it’s him or Pam or both, but they’re so tangled together in that moment that it doesn’t matter; her space is his space is their space, and he presses himself impossibly closer to her. <br/> <br/>—</p><p> He wakes up the next morning with Pam wrapped around him like a koala, her hair sticking to his chin and cheeks. He can’t bring himself to wake her, and he’s rarely ever up before her, so he lays there, threading his fingers through her hair, scratching her scalp lightly whenever she stirs or shifts. </p><p><br/> She finally stretches, blinking at the soft sunlit peering through the slats of his shades. Ryan peppers her face with kisses the second she’s awake, a mumbled ‘I love you’ accompanying each one. Now that he’s said it’s like her can’t stop, and he presses a final one into her mouth. </p><p><br/> She laughs the whole time, snuggling her face against his chest once he pulls back. “I love you, too,” she says, into his skin, and his heart stutters a little at it again. God, does he love her. It scares him still, he’s honest enough with himself to admit that, but he thinks it’s okay to be scared, especially when he knows she’ll help him through it, especially when she’s scared alongside him, still willing to dive in feet first with him. </p><p><br/> She stays all the way through until Sunday night, when he has to drop her back off at her own apartment, and it’s the hardest time he’s had saying goodbye to her. They kiss goodbye in the car for what feels like an hour, and when he gets home, his sheets still smell like her, springy and citrusy. The morning can’t come soon enough, can’t wait to pick her back up tomorrow morning, hot coffee waiting for her in the cupholder. </p><p><br/> He can’t even bring himself to be annoyed with how sappy he is, just curls up against her pillow and nods off. </p><p>—</p><p> The first week of December brings the first snowfall of winter, a light dusting that melts by lunchtime. Pam talks him into buying peppermint mochas at Starbucks, and he savors the the sweetness of it, secretly, as he types away at his computer. The holidays pass in an unprecedented blur, starting with the tedious horror of the office Christmas party and culminating with Ryan keeling over Rex's toilet on New Year's Eve, revisiting seemingly everything he's ever eaten.</p><p>January dawns with cold, sunny days, the snow turning a blinding white that forces Ryan to wear sunglasses when he drives, but it brings a soft sense of peace with it; the rush of December cools to languid pace, and Ryan feels like he can finally breathe again. Starbucks is still serving those overpriced peppermint mochas, and Ryan's still secretly buying them, sipping slowly at them as he tries to reconcile his client contracts against his supplier contracts.</p><p><br/> Andy’s at an unparalleled level, though, singing the Cranberries loudly in a false baritone, and it’s giving Ryan a headache. Andy’s only cycling through the refrain, too, which makes the whole thing even worse, and by the third ‘in my head, in my he-e-ad,’ Ryan’s ready to dig through his work bag for his headphones. <br/> It’s annoying Jim too, it seems, because Halpert leans towards him as Andy ambles over to the kitchen, still singing. </p><p><br/> “Want to help me prank Andy?” he asks, and in that moment, Ryan’s not sure which of them he hates more. Him and Jim have been getting a long better recently, have even traded a few CDs back and forth, but Ryan doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to care enough about ‘pranks’ to be able to get on board with Jim. He’s twenty-seven, after all, not thirteen. </p><p><br/> “Yeah, sure,” Ryan says, nodding his head, not missing a beat as he types. “Why don’t you ask me that same question about ten years ago?” </p><p><br/> Jim scowls, turning back to his desk, but he drops the subject, and Ryan’s able to finish the expense report he’s been trying to fill out for the last hour or so. </p><p><br/> He wishes he’d agreed to help Jim, though, after he sees Halpert pop up by Pam’s desk, whispering quietly to her. He catches Karen’s eye across the bullpen, and she’s looking put out too, and she grimaces at him as Pam giggles a little bit. </p><p>— </p><p> Andy’s phone ends up somewhere in the ceiling, and Ryan can tell it’s Jim and Pam’s doing. They keep hiding smiles behind their hands, pretending to be completely absorbed in work as Andy’s ringtone wriggles throughout the office, somewhere above their heads. </p><p><br/> It really only serves to make Andy more annoying, as he complains loudly and emphatically every time his cell phone rings, and Ryan spends more time concentrating on working than he does actually working. </p><p><br/> He gets so behind with all the distractions that he ends up taking a late lunch, sitting alone by himself at the far table. He’s been hovering at a low level of irritation all day long, and he can’t even bring himself to pretend to read his book as he eats, staring idly at the slate gray walls instead. </p><p><br/> Karen’s in the same boat, though, and she appears a little ways into his lunch, her own meal clutched in her hands. He waves cordially at her- he’s been less friendly with her than with Jim, as it matters considerably less to Pam if he and Karen get along, and she responds with her own awkward wave and a tight smile. </p><p><br/> “You’re struggling to keep up today, too?” she asks, and she lingers by one of the chairs of the table he’s at, asking wordlessly for an invitation. He points to the chair in answer, nodding, and she flops into it, cracking open a can of seltzer. Of course she drinks straight seltzer. Karen’s boring enough to probably have a favorite brand of it, he thinks. </p><p><br/> “I’m currently at a point in my to-do list that I should’ve reached by eleven-thirty,” he says evenly, and she groans in commiseration. </p><p><br/> “I love Jim, but sometimes I just wish he’d tone it down a bit,” she says. Ryan nods, picking through his leftover pasta. It’s some new recipe Pam had wanted to try, and they’d spent a good few hours preparing it only for her to end up hating it. They’d ordered takeaway instead, but Ryan hadn’t minded the pasta dish, and he’d been bringing in leftovers for lunch the past few days now. </p><p><br/> “It’s just,” Karen says. She sounds genuinely frustrated, which is new, and Ryan pauses, his fork frozen in the middle of his plate. “I wish he’d stop and think about how this effects everyone else, y’know? That, yeah, he might have time to bunk off his work and mess around with Dwight or Andy or whoever else, but we’re not all secretaries. We can’t all just drop our incredibly important jobs of answering phones and making copies and throw cell phones in the ceiling.” </p><p><br/> She makes a face before she realizes what she says, and it does amuse Ryan a little bit to watch her scramble, try to backtrack the shot she’d taken at Pam. “Sorry, I’m just- It’s not that Pam’s job is less important, I just meant… I meant-“ </p><p><br/> “It’s fine,” Ryan says, holding his hand up to stop her. He’s not really interested in hearing her apology, anyway. They eat in silence for a few moments, Karen munching just ever so slightly too loud on her salad, Ryan doing his best to ignore it. </p><p><br/> She clears her throat after a while, putting her fork down gently, and Ryan’s already regretting let her join him for lunch before she’s even started talking. “Do… do you ever get the vibe that, like, there’s something more between Pam and Jim?” she asks. Ryan’s not sure what surprises, and subsequently annoys, him most- the fact that Jim hadn’t told Karen anything about the past he had with Pam, the fact that Karen was picking up on it anyway, or the fact that she was sharing her misgivings with Ryan, of all people. </p><p><br/> “You don’t know?” he asks, and there’s a flit of terror in her eyes before he can elaborate. “Pam was engaged to one of the warehouse guys, Jim was in love with her anyway, he kissed her, she refused to break off her engagement, he fucked off to Connecticut to deal with it, whatever, some other shit happened, now her and I are together.” </p><p><br/> “Jim used to have feelings for Pam?” she asks, and her voice goes up an octave. Ryan really, really wishes he didn’t have to have this conversation. He debates slinking back out to desk, finishing up his lunch there, but another exclamation of ‘oh, come on!’ from Andy filters through the walls, and he decides that this is marginally better than that. </p><p><br/> “Guess so,” Ryan says, shrugging. </p><p><br/> “Doesn’t that bother you?” </p><p><br/> “Whatever,” he says, and he shrugs again. He doesn’t want Karen to know about how he’s always on edge when Jim goes and talks to Pam, how it crawls under his skin a little bit when they joke around together. He knows it shouldn’t bother him, has been assured by Pam many times over that that door is firmly closed, and that’s why he hates bringing it up. Because he knows better. Because he feels like he should be able to control something as menial and unimportant as jealousy over Halpert.</p><p>“She’s over him,” he adds, just to drive his point home for Karen.  </p><p><br/> She doesn’t look thrilled, though. “Is he over her?” she asks.  </p><p><br/> “You tell me,” Ryan says, and he means it more as a ‘I don’t fucking know, I don’t care. I’m not dating him, you are, don’t ask me to read his mind,’ but she takes it in a different way. her thin brows pull together, and she starts picking at the skin around her nails. </p><p><br/> Ryan is suddenly incredibly disinterested in the conversation. He has no willpower to bolster Karen’s confidence in her relationship, and he shovels a few forkfuls of pasta in mouth faster than necessary. Pam would’ve known what he meant, he thinks bitterly, wouldn’t have misinterpreted his words. He wishes he could’ve eaten lunch with her, instead. </p><p><br/> He stands, tossing his trash, wishing Karen a good lunch. She doesn’t really respond, just makes some sort of vague noise in answer, and Ryan’s never been so glad to hear Andy’s voice as he sits back down at his desk. </p><p> </p><p>— </p><p> Michael makes some announcement right at five, something dismissive towards Andy, and Jim picks the exact wrong moment to call his cell again. Andy winds up and punches a hole directly through the office’s drywall, screaming wildly about something indecipherable. Ryan’s unimpressed with the whole display- he’s severely behind on his to-do list, and he’s probably going to have to stay late tomorrow to catch up, and the fact that Pam and Jim are twittering together at reception only serves to ruin his mood further. </p><p><br/> He yanks his coat on and stands a little off to the side, fiddling with his blackberry as Pam finishes up with Jim. He can tell Karen’s doing the same, over by her own desk. He hates that he’s in the same proverbial boat as Fillapelli, and he focuses on his email instead, scrolling though a weekly update from Rex. </p><p><br/> Pam’s suddenly at his side, wrapping both her arms around his left bicep. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” she says, kissing his cheek. “Do you mind if we stop at mine before we go to Al’s tonight? I want to wear one of my shirts that I don’t think is at yours.” He nods, and she kisses his cheek again. “Hey, listen,” she says, and her voice is a little softer, a little rounder. </p><p><br/> “What’s up?” he asks, brushing a lock of hair from her face. She leans into the touch, and it sets Ryan’s ribs on fire. </p><p><br/> “I know today was probably hard for you, and I can’t imagine you were able to get much done with everything that was going on,” she mumbles, and Ryan’s stunned. He hadn’t mentioned anything about how behind he was to her, had barely had a chance to talk her all day long, and he’s impressed and shocked that she knew it, anyway. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to throw you off your schedule. And I was thinking I could make it up to you this weekend, if you wanted.” </p><p><br/> Ryan has no idea how she knew, how she was able to discern how behind he is now. All his stress and irritation melts away completely, and he pulls her in for a lingering kiss, right there in the entrance to the office. He doesn’t need her to make it up to him, doesn’t need any sort of apology or anything from her, not anymore. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to how easily she can read him. </p><p><br/> As he pulls away, he can hear the low rumbles of an argument starting between Karen and Jim, and Ryan can tell it has to do with what they talked about during lunch. He darts out of the office quickly, Pam in tow, and taps the elevator button rapidly. They’re fully arguing now, loud voices cutting each other off, and Pam turns to him in concern. </p><p><br/> “What do you think that’s about?” she asks, and Ryan shrugs.</p><p><br/> “I told Karen about, y’know, the whole thing,” he says vaguely, waving his hand around. He wouldn’t have mentioned this to her, but he’s worried now that she’ll learn about it from Jim, and since she’s reassured him without her even realizing he needed it- well, he doesn’t really want to keep anything from her. </p><p><br/> “‘The whole thing’?” she asks, her eyebrows raising, and Ryan taps the elevator button again. </p><p><br/> “Yeah, the whole, uh, you and Jim thing,” he says, and he’s waiting for her to be mad, annoyed that he offered up her personal business so carelessly, but there’s not even a flicker of irritation on her face. </p><p><br/> “He didn’t tell her any of that?” she asks, instead, and Ryan’s eyes bulge, laughing. </p><p><br/> “That was my thought!” he cries, and then he can hear Karen screech something particularly rude. They abandon the elevator, clamoring down the stairs instead. <br/> <br/>—</p><p> Al’s that night is more peaceful than usual, the crowd a little thinner than the last few weeks have been. He and Pam manage to claim the pool table sooner than normal, and Ryan immediately gets to work wiping the floor with Pam as they play. She’s getting better than she used to be, and it’s almost a challenge for Ryan to beat her at this point; she knows it, too, wiggling her eyebrows in taunt as she lands a particularly difficult shot. </p><p><br/> He slides up to the bar for more drinks halfway through the game, and he happens to look up at the door just as Jim walks in, Karen in tow. They’re in a much better mood than they were three hours ago, he notes, Karen brushing a few snowflakes off of Jim’s coat. </p><p><br/> Ryan raises his hand in greeting as Jim notices him, and Karen flushes bright red as she follows Jim’s eye line to him. He takes the drinks back to where Pam’s waiting at the pool table, hands her her vodka soda and points to the bar, where Jim’s busy ordering. </p><p><br/> “You wanna ask them to play?” he asks. He doesn’t care if they join them or if they ignore each other all night, really, but he knows Pam would love the chance to hang out with Jim outside of work, and she’s floated the idea of inviting Jim and Karen out more than once. </p><p><br/> “Absolutely!” Pam says, and she takes her drink, sipping through the itty cocktail straws. Ryan waves them over, Karen trailing just the littlest bit behind Jim as they weave through the sparse crowd. </p><p><br/> “Hey, guys,” Jim says, and Ryan’s surprised to see he’s drinking the craft IPA as well- he hadn’t pegged Jim for a craft beer guy, had figured the dude was more likely to stick to Miller Lites or Budweisers. Karen waves, awkwardly, and Ryan can’t stand the tension. </p><p><br/> “You guys seem in a better mood,” he says bluntly, and Pam elbows him in the ribs as subtly as she can, her gaze firm without making it obvious. It doesn’t phase Ryan; he’d rather have it out in the open, doesn’t want to deal with Karen and Jim dancing around it. </p><p><br/> “Yeah,” Jim says, nodding. “I, uh. Well. Today was a weird one.” </p><p><br/> “I can’t believe Andy punched a hole in the wall,” Pam says, and then they’re all focusing on that topic, on Andy’s anger management issues, and the evening passes in a smooth haze. Ryan challenges Jim and Karen to pool, and he sees just how much Pam’s actually improved once they’re on the same team. Jim and Karen don’t even stand a chance, and the rematch they demand is equally as futile. </p><p><br/> When they bid goodbye in the parking lot, Ryan’s satisfied with the evening, and he winds both arms tightly around Pam, picking her up to spin her in a single circle. She yelps out a laugh, kissing him once he’s placed her back on the ground.  </p><p><br/> “What was that for?” she asks, and she brushes a few snowflakes off of Ryan’s hair. </p><p><br/> “I just felt like it,” he says. “I love you.” </p><p><br/> “Love you too,” she kisses him again, smiling into his mouth. “Thank you, for that, tonight. For inviting Jim to join us.” </p><p><br/> “Only for you,” he says, and he means it; he would do a lot to make her happy that he wouldn’t do for any other reason, and the small smile she gives him is worth every bit of his efforts to socialize tonight. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks to all of you, again, for the patience in these slow uploads, as well as patience with my ~creative liberties~ re: both Pam and Ryan's family members. <br/>More angst coming up in these next few chapters; Beach Day is next, and we all know the chain of events that starts. Forgive the somewhat clumsy time-jump in here, as well; for whatever reason I originally had Beach Day happening in January, which makes little narrative sense. <br/>No beta again- all mistakes are my own. <br/>Chapter title is from The Shins' 'Phantom Limb'</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. put the fire out, you'll burn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ryan’s starting to get a headache behind his right eyeball. He checks his watch again, not even pretending to be subtle about it this time. Nine-forty-three AM. <br/>If he ends up on Halpert’s team he’s getting back on the bus.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> The asphalt in the parking lot is already baking by the time Ryan steps out of the car in the morning, and he groans, loudly, exaggeratedly, as his feet hit the ground. Pam laughs, her hair drawn back into a springy little ponytail that bounces back and forth as she shakes her head at him. </p><p><br/> “I told you not to wear jeans,” she says, pointedly, but its light, her tone mirroring the soft morning light that’s still coming over the hillsides. </p><p><br/> “‘I told you not to wear jeans’,” Ryan mocks, anyway, even though he doesn’t mean it, because the heat’s still making him cranky, and it’s a mark of how well Pam knows him that she just laughs at him in response. </p><p><br/> “<em>Beach day</em>!” Michael’s voice comes streaming across the parking lot, and Ryan leans forward, pressing his forehead against the warm metal of the Equinox. Out of the corner of his eye, he squints at his watch, watching the second hand tick around. Eight-fifty-seven AM. Four hundred and eighty three minutes left in the day. </p><p><br/> In his peripheral, he can see a shape hustling towards him, and he doesn’t know how, but he <em>knows</em> it’s Michael, and he screws his eyes shut tight for a few seconds before leaning back, away from his car, blinking against the mid-morning sun. </p><p><br/> “Hey, Michael,” Pam says, gently, once he’s reached the car. He’s huffing, slightly out of breath, grinning like a lunatic, his Sandal’s Jamaica shirt looking freshly ironed underneath his floral gaudy monstrosity of a button up. </p><p><br/> Ryan would feel sorry for him- he really would- if he wasn’t so actively and so continually making Ryan’s life markedly less enjoyable. </p><p><br/> “Morning, guys,” Michael breathes out, waving at them, and Ryan’s halfway through rolling his eyes when he catches sight of Pam, watching Michael with her head cocked. She’s got an expression on he face- that same one she has when Michael tells her he’s going to marry Catherine Zeta-Jones or when he starts constructing forts in the conference room to avoid work- and Ryan’s suddenly conscious, again, of how much <em>better</em> she is than him. </p><p><br/> He nods, once, at Michael, lips pursed tight, and Michael beams at him, his eyes crinkling up at the edges and grinning brighter than the sun is. </p><p><br/> “Excited?” he asks, and Ryan shrugs, half-heartedly, mostly still wishing he hadn’t worn jeans, but Michael just grins even wider. It’s pitiable, really, how little effort Ryan has to put in for Michael to react like this. </p><p><br/> Ryan’s not entirely sure what it says about him that he still doesn’t even want to make that tiny, minuscule amount of effort. </p><p><br/> “We’re very excited,” Pam says, her own smile soft and encouraging. “It’s hot today, it’ll be nice to be on the beach.” </p><p><br/> “Yeah, well, it’s not a vacation,” Michael says, cryptically, and Pam’s smile freezes. </p><p><br/> “What does that mean?” she asks, and Ryan wishes he’d let himself finish his eye-roll.  Of course there’s some sort of ‘other plan’. When has there ever- <em>ever</em>- been a regular day with Michael? He peeks another glance at his watch, as surreptitiously as he can. Which, admittedly, he’s not trying too hard at the moment, and he knows Pam catches his scowl. </p><p>—</p><p> Lake Scranton is marginally cooler than the parking lot had been, and the breeze blowing in off the water is a welcome relief from the clusterfuck of the bus. Ryan's pretty sure it was Andy that started the entirely asinine sing along, which he’d considerably less mad at if it wasn’t for Michael’s block-headed insistence on singing the way he does. </p><p><br/> In any case, Ryan’s glad to be off the bus, even if he does get sand in his shoes almost immediately, and he takes a long, deep, breath, letting the lukewarm, ever-so-slightly-fishy air fill his lungs. </p><p><br/> He’s minutely less miserable than he could be, he supposes. </p><p><br/> “Beach day!” Michael cheers, elbowing his way off the bus, his baseball hat on backwards in what Ryan desperately hopes isn’t some pitiful attempt at youth. </p><p><br/> “How many times are you going to scream that?” Stanley asks, his face set into an impossible mixture of boredom and irritation, and Ryan rolls his eyes skyward. He’s not going to make it through today, not like this, not trapped on an ailing beach with coworkers that he’d rather not look at longer than he has to.</p><p> <br/> “As many times as I feel like it, Stanley,” Michael says, hissing the last word, even as he avoids eye contact. “You’re probably all wondering why I brought you here, to beautiful Lake Scranton,” he continues, sweeping his arm out, presenting the slightly-bleak scenery to them. </p><p><br/> “No,” Angela says, matter-of-factly, and Ryan can’t help it- he snorts, quietly, with laughter, which only earns him a disapproving and slightly disgusted look from Angela. </p><p><br/> Michael doesn’t hear it- or, at the very least, chooses to ignore it- and he starts splitting the office up into teams, nominating captains. Ryan’s not sure what the criteria for being a captain is- not when Dwight, Halpert, Stanley, and Andy, of all people, somehow fit it- and he turns to Pam to say something about it, some half-formulated joke, when Michael’s voice cuts through and interrupts him. </p><p><br/> “Pam, come here, you’re not eligible,” Michael says, waving Pam towards him. She’s standing with her hand over her eyes, shielding herself from the harsh sun beating down on the them, and she turns slightly, squinting up at Ryan. </p><p><br/> “What does he mean by ‘eligible’?” she asks, her voice soft, tinged with apprehension in a way that Ryan is overly familiar with, given the amount of completely fucking bonkers antics Michael gets up to. </p><p><br/> He shrugs, sighing, wishing he was somewhere else, anywhere else; grocery shopping, at the doctor’s- hell, at this point, he’d take being back at the office, doing his work. </p><p><br/> “Pam, Pam, Pam, we don’t have all day,” Michael insists, waving Pam over to him again, more insistently, and Pam trods over there, pursing her lips together. Michael shoves a notepad at her when she’s close enough, instructing her to take notes about how well each ‘tribe’ performs, and Ryan can feel the disappointment rolling off of Pam. She takes it without complaint, though, flipping the notebook open and clicking her pen. </p><p><br/> “Alright, tribe captains, pick your teams,” Michael says, his hands on his hips, looking so alike to a child playing dress-up as Jeff Probst, and Ryan snorts again, this time half in disbelief. “Jim, you’re first.” </p><p><br/> “Karen,” Jim says, after pretending to think about for half of a second, with his goofy, faux-witty affectation. Karen banters back, because of course she does, and Ryan’s starting to get a headache behind his right eyeball. He checks his watch again, not even pretending to be subtle about it this time. Nine-forty-three AM. </p><p><br/> If he ends up on Halpert’s team he’s getting back on the bus.</p><p> <br/> “Dwight, you’re up,” Michael says. </p><p><br/> “I want the temp,” Dwight says, his sunblock-covered nose looming out from underneath his ridiculous hat like some sort of ghost, hellbent on making Ryan’s day somehow, astonishingly, <em>worse</em>. </p><p><br/> “Do I have to?” he asks, before he can stop himself, and Kelly giggles from somewhere to his left. </p><p><br/> “<em>Yes</em>, Ryan, please, come on, let’s keep this moving,” Michael says, motioning roughly for Ryan to go take his place behind Dwight, exasperation seeping into his voice. </p><p><br/> A march to the electric chair on death row would be less painful, Ryan thinks, as he trudges to his spot. The sand in his shoes is starting to itch, and the breeze off the lake isn’t holding the heat at bay like he’d hoped it would- he’s sweating in his jeans, maybe chaffing- the point is, he’s miserable, he’s uncomfortable, and he wishes fervently he’d called in sick today. </p><p><br/> He catches Pam’s eye on his way over, and she gives him the tiniest of smiles as she scratches his name into her notebook, underneath Dwight’s. For a fleeting moment he considers begging to be allowed to switch positions with her, but Michael’s already moved on to let Stanley pick his first teammate, and Ryan slides behind Dwight. </p><p><br/> Splitting the rest of the office up into tribes is a process that feels like it takes at least half an hour, even though Ryan’s watch only mockingly reads out nine-fifty when it’s all over. He thinks it might be broken, honestly. Maybe its insides baked in the heat.</p><p><br/> “We’re Team Gryffindor,” Dwight announces, once Michael asks for tribe names, and next to him, Meredith pulls a face of confusion as she takes a long drink from something that looks like a sunscreen bottle, even though it reeks suspiciously of rum. </p><p><br/> “Are you drinking rum at ten in the morning?” Ryan asks her, under his breath, partly because he can’t help himself, partly because he’s hoping the answer is ‘yes,’ and he can ask for a swig. </p><p><br/> “Back off, temp, it’s beach day,” Meredith snaps, sucking down another swallow. </p><p><br/> Michael claps his hands together, pulling them back to him like kindergartners on a field trip, and announces an egg-and-spoon relay race, tossing them bandanas to blindfold themselves.</p><p><br/>  “What is the point of this, honestly?” Angela asks, as Andy ties a bandana around her head, and Ryan, for the first time in his life, agrees with her. Dwight pulls a bandana around his own head, pulling it way too tightly, and Ryan grits his teeth, white-knuckling his spoon before he snaps.</p><p><br/> “Survivors ready?” Michael asks, instead of answering anyone’s questions. “Go!” </p><p><br/> Dwight’s immediately- <em>immediately</em>- screaming in his ear to ‘go faster, move, move, move,’ and Ryan grits his teeth, taking a half-step forward.  </p><p><br/> “Don’t yell at me, alright?” he says, holding a hand out in front of him, taking a few steps forward.</p><p> <br/> “I’m not ‘yelling’, I’m just-“ </p><p><br/> “Don’t,” Ryan warns, again, his sneakers kicking up more sand, which finds its way into his shoes, rubbing against his heels with an unpleasant grittiness.  </p><p><br/> “Move, temp, you’re falling behind!” Dwight says, loudly, directly into his ear, and Ryan rips the blindfold off in one smooth motion, tossing the spoon and egg into the sand. Dwight’s screaming, still, angry at him for something, but Ryan’s lost the interest and ability to care, and he plops himself down in the sand next to Pam. </p><p><br/> “I had big money on you to win,” Pam says, softly, jokingly. “The over-under was crazy, I had to take the risk.” Ryan can’t help but chuckle, even as he soaks in his own self-imposed anger and pity, and he rubs his hand over his face, squinting through his lashes in the relentless sunlight to look at her. </p><p><br/> “Are we betting on something?” Kevin interrupts, suddenly, appearing next to Ryan in silence- which, Ryan thinks, is not a talent Kevin has ever seemed to possess. </p><p><br/> “No, Kev, we’re not,” Pam says, in her quiet voice that’s usually reserved for Michael.</p><p><br/> “Because if we’re betting, I want in.” </p><p> “We’re not betting, Kevin,” Ryan sighs. </p><p><br/> Kevin doesn’t seem to believe him, at least not fully, but he ambles off anyway, his beady eyes narrowed, somewhat suspiciously, as he glances back at them. <br/> Ryan’s watch, barely readable with the sunlight beaming down directly on them, displays ten-twenty. </p><p>—</p><p> Ryan doesn’t bother with the ‘contest’ part of the hot dog eating contest, instead allowing himself the meager luxury of eating a cold hot dog at his own pace, but he flat out refuses to put on a sumo suit and fight Oscar. Pam spends the day at Michael’s side, denoting the various details of the completely ridiculous games Michael’s thought up, and Ryan’s forced to entertain himself. </p><p><br/> Creed, at one point, wanders off to go catch a fish, which interests Ryan well enough at first- it’s certainly more interesting than watching Dwight make a fool of himself in an inflatable sumo costume, which, really, says something about the state of his workplace- but then Creed’s catching them with his bare hands and digging into them in a way that reminds Ryan too intensely of Gollum, and he taps out, unable to watch any longer. </p><p><br/> They’re forced to sit through a long-winded speech from Michael as the sun sets, and by the end of it, Ryan doesn’t even have the energy to be annoyed anymore. He’s completely drained, almost indifferent, even as Michael unveils a coal pit that they’re expected to have to walk across. </p><p><br/> Ryan chuckles, emotionless, as everyone refuses to do so, calling it crazy, as if the rest of the day hasn’t already been a shitshow- as if <em>any</em> day working in the office isn’t already on par with today. </p><p><br/> “Michael, what is- what’s the point of all this?” someone asks, loudly- it might be Angela, maybe Kelly, Ryan’s too checked out at this point to really tell. </p><p><br/> “I- it’s- when I’m- I’m getting promoted!” Michael blurts out, and Ryan’s interest in everything slams back into him. He sits up, his mouth slightly open, because- well- Michael? A promotion? </p><p><br/> “You’re getting promoted,” Jim says, flatly, in a tone that Ryan only recognizes from having used it so often himself.</p><p><br/>  “Yeah- I’m- I’m getting a job at corporate,” he says, and Ryan feels his eyebrows fly past his forehead and into his hairline. </p><p><br/> Dwight, of course, falls directly at Michael’s feet, begging to have Michael’s job, to be elected the most worthy candidate. He goes so far to stand directly on the hot coals, and Ryan has to listen to the flesh literally burn off of Dwight’s feet while half of the office screams around him in disbelief. </p><p><br/> It comes out, eventually, that the position isn’t Michael’s yet- Oscar weasels it out of him, Ryan’s pretty sure- that it’s just an open interview, and that anyone interested in the position could call and be considered for it, much to Michael’s chagrin. </p><p><br/> Halpert and Karen call almost immediately, off to the side, not pretending to hide it from anyone else.</p><p><br/> Ryan, at least, thinks he has a bit more decorum, and he sneaks off to the coach bus under the pretense of using the bathroom and calls corporate from there. </p><p><br/> The receptionist is pleasant enough, adding his name to David Wallace’s list of applicants, and he’s told that Wallace will call him back within a day or two with a bit more information. </p><p><br/> Pam’s finally freed from her notebook duties, and she’s off to the side when he returns from the bus, warming her feet by the coal walk. </p><p><br/> “Where’d you go?” she asks, innocently curious, and Ryan hesitates, briefly, for a reason he doesn’t quite understand. </p><p><br/> “I- I had to use the restroom,” he lies, even as he doesn’t understand why he does, but Pam doesn’t question it, just pats the ground next to her. Ryan settles in, against the soft sand, finally thankful for his jeans- the setting sun had stolen a good portion of the day’s warmth with it, and the night’s cooled rapidly around them.</p><p> <br/> Pam sides up to his side, warm against his ribs, and Ryan doesn’t understand the tiny bubble of guilt in his stomach, doesn’t know why he’s not just telling Pam who he called and why. Her hair, soft against his jaw, smells faintly like peaches, and the fire is reflecting against the warm brown of her eyes, and he forces himself to chalk it up to not wanting to be overheard by anyone else in the office, lest he ruin the one good moment of today with his own tendency to overthink. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So sorry for the delay!! I promise this hasn't been abandoned. This update took me forever to write and rewrite- I wasn't sure what parts of Beach Day to include, because while Pam's speech at the end is such a pivotal moment to her character, it really felt tied to the Jim/Pam plotline in a way that didn't make sense to include? Who knows if that was the right decision. Originally I didn't have beach day happening this way at all, just to try and avoid some of that, but it didn't feel right that way either, so. Anyway. Enjoy, sorry again for the delay, and the next chapter will be up much sooner than this one was!! <br/>Chapter title is from Grouplove's 'Itchin' on a Photograph'</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. i didn't mean to say what i did say</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ryan settles into corporate better than he ever did in Scranton. He likes the nice suits he gets to wear to work, loves showing up five days a week to a high-rise where a person presses the elevator buttons for him, and he really loves the bustling, constant busyness of the city. His corporate co-workers are open to his ideas, receptive and equally creative, and he feels more challenged here, as well more rewarded. <br/>The only thing he hates is his cold, empty apartment, which, in spite of his best efforts, still seems impersonal, like it’s lifted from a catalogue spread and not a space he exists and lives in.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Mild angst ahead. I promise this has a happy ending.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Michel makes a grand, sweeping, exit on a Thursday afternoon, handing the office off to Dwight and bestowing what little power and influence he had to him. To Michael’s disdain- and to Ryan’s secret, quiet delight- no one pays attention to the ceremonial theater of it, and all Michael gets from the rest of the office is a half-hearted ‘bye, good luck,’ before he’s forced to trudge out of the door and down the hallway. </p><p><br/> Ryan’s not even sure the latch on the front door has completely clicked shut before Dwight’s bossing everyone around, demanding fealty from the rest of the office. </p><p><br/> “What’s felt-y?” Kevin asks, staring open mouthed at Dwight. </p><p><br/> “Not felt-y, Kevin. <em>Fealty</em>,” Dwight sighs, rolling his eyes. “God, it’s like no one here has ever read a high fantasy genre novel.” </p><p><br/> As much as the idea of Halpert also interviewing for this position completely fucking annoys him, Ryan’s never been more pleased he’s gone for the day. The only thing worse than Dwight’s antics is Halpert’s insistence on riling Dwight up in a way that’s only amusing to him; any day without one of Gigantor’s ‘witty’ quips is a win in Ryan’s book. </p><p><br/> “Sometimes Bob and I dress up like Liv Tyler and Viggo Mortenson in <em>Lord of the Rings</em> to spice it up in the bedroom,” Phyllis says. The rest of the office erupts into groans and loud cries of ‘<em>Phyllis</em>!’, and as Dwight tries desperately to get everyone to pay attention to him again, Ryan buries his face in his hands, pressing the heel of his hand into his eye sockets. </p><p><br/> He’d rather have Jim here, he thinks, as bright flashes of green and purple erupt behind his eyelids. Somehow, that’s better than this. Probably. </p><p><br/> “Hey,” Pam’s voice, quietly, worms its way through the chaos, and he twists his head sideways, just barely, to see her craning her neck over the top of the receptionist desk. She’s smiling at him, because she always is, and it’s light and soft and it makes the bottom of Ryan’s stomach fall out. </p><p><br/> “Hey,” he says back, equally as quiet as hers, and he forces himself out of his chair and over to reception. Her hair’s swept back today, just enough to frame her face, and Ryan knows he has to tell her.  </p><p><br/> Because he hasn’t. </p><p><br/> Yet. </p><p><br/> But he will </p><p> </p><p> He<em> will.</em> </p><p><br/> It’s just- he doesn’t know how to explain why he didn’t at first, and now he doesn’t know how to explain why he hasn’t still, and he knows he’s cutting it close, but a part of him thinks he’s not going to get the position anyway, and then this whole thing will be a moot point and he’ll never have to explain any of it to her. </p><p><br/> He interviewed with Wallace two days ago, made his way into the city under the pretense of going there to pick something up as a favor to his mother, and Pam was none the wiser. </p><p><br/> And he knows. He knows he shouldn’t lie to her, he knows he shouldn’t hide this from her, he <em>knows</em>. </p><p><br/> He just also knows that, should he get it, it’s going to raise a lot of questions that he doesn’t want to think of the answer to just yet. </p><p><br/> “I saved you this, just for today,” Pam says, her voice cutting through his spiral and bringing it to a dead stop, and she passes him a tiny sachet of yellow jellybeans, her fingers warm against Ryan’s palm. </p><p><br/> He can feel his face smiling, and his chest is burning with the warm, bright feeling he always has around Pam, but he feels like he’s swallowed his heart whole. </p><p><br/> “You’re the best,” he says, but it sounds hollow to his own ears, and he stares at the little yellow ovals in his palm, unblinking. He should’ve told her. Should’ve told her <em>ages</em> ago. </p><p><br/> “<em>Fealty</em>, Kevin,” Dwight's voice rings through the office again, too loud, and it echoes in Ryan’s ears like a gunshot, making I’m almost dizzy. “It means loyalty, and I expect you to have it for your new leader!” </p><p>“I wouldn’t let you lead me across the street, let alone here,” Stanley drones, just as Creed cocks his head to the side, biting down on his pinky finger. </p><p><br/> “I was a cult leader, once,” he says, and Ryan stares at the jellybeans all the way back to his desk. His stomach is somehow achingly cold and boiling, all at once, and he’s glad he already ate his lunch, because there’s no way he’d be able to force it down at this point. </p><p><br/> Pam catches his eye and gives him another small smile, her eyes crinkling in the corners, and Ryan returns it, but how convincingly he does so, he isn’t sure. </p><p>— </p><p> He doesn’t work up the courage to say anything until they’ve both settled down for dinner, both of their plates warm with a lemon chicken dish that’s become one of their favorites. Ryan can’t bring himself to do much more than push it around on his plate, and it takes Pam a few bites before she pauses, watching him. </p><p><br/> “Is everything okay?” she asks, her head cocked, and Ryan nods, jerkily. “Are you sure? If you don’t feel good,  I can put yours away so you can lie down for a bit-“ </p><p><br/> “No,” Ryan interrupts, too sharp and too short, and he sighs, laying his fork back down on the table. Pam’s still watching him with such a level of care and concern and kindness and Ryan’s absolutely unable to handle it, and he covers his face his hands, burying himself. Maybe if he can’t see her than the whole situation will go away, maybe he won’t have to deal with it at all, maybe- </p><p><br/> “Ry?” she asks, again, and he peers through his fingers enough see her forehead wrinkling and Ryan sighs again, even heavier. He pulls one of his hands away from his face, dropping it onto his napkin, pulling at a loose thread in the stitching. </p><p><br/> “I interviewed for the corporate job on Tuesday,” he says. He can’t look at her, can’t bring himself to meet her eyes, and he trains his eyes on his knuckles instead, watching his skin contract and expand as he pulls at the napkin. </p><p><br/> “You….” is all she says, and she sounds more confused than anything else, and maybe it’s that fact that gives Ryan the courage to glance up at her. </p><p><br/> She’s not mad, not yet- doesn’t even look hurt, really- but her eyebrows are pulled together, and she’s squinting at him, her eyes watching his. “What do you mean?” she asks, finally. </p><p><br/> “The corporate job,” Ryan repeats. “The one Michael and Karen and Jim are interviewing for. I drove down on Tuesday and interviewed.” </p><p><br/> “I thought you went to go pick up that end table for your mother?”  </p><p><br/> “I… lied,” Ryan says it so softly that he’s not even sure Pam hears him at first, but then she blinks and there’s a flash of realization on her face that’s completely unmistakable. </p><p><br/> “You lied,” she says, and Ryan know she’s aiming for flat and emotionless in her tone, but he knows her too well, can hear the brittle edge of hurt in her voice. </p><p><br/> “I- it’s not- I didn’t lie on <em>purpose</em>,” he says, and he feels like his grasping at straws, at air, like his trying to close his fist around water. “I just- you were- I don’t even know if I’m going to get it, I didn’t think-“ </p><p><br/> “You didn’t think,” Pam interrupts. “That’s it. You just didn’t think. You never think about anyone but yourself,” she snaps, and the dam seems to break, and Pam stands suddenly from the table, brushing at her face with her shirt sleeve, wiping away what Ryan assumes are tears that she’s not letting him see. </p><p> </p><p> “That’s not true, Pam, you know I’m always thinking about y-“ </p><p><br/> “But you’re not, are you?” she interrupts again, and Ryan can count on one hand the amount of people who can stop him cold like this. Pam’s chin is dimpled from the effort of trying to stop herself from crying, and she scrubs at her face again with her shirt sleeve, sniffing in a way that Ryan knows is meant to be inconspicuous. </p><p><br/> He doesn’t have an answer for her, not really, not when she’s right- because if he had been thinking about her, he would’ve told her this, and much sooner- and he opens and closes his mouth a few times before Pam huffs, turning her back to him as she disappears into the kitchen. </p><p><br/> “Pam,” he says, because he has to say <em>something</em>, but she doesn’t answer him. He calls her name again, softer, winding his way from the table and into the kitchen as well, only to see her staring into the fridge, sniffing uncontrollably. </p><p><br/> “Pam,” he says, a third time, and she just looks at him in response, her eyes rimmed red. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean to keep this from you,” he ekes out, leaning against the counter. “I meant to tell you, I did. But then I didn’t know how to explain why I didn’t just tell you immediately, and then I didn’t want you to feel like I was trying to- I don’t even know, honestly. I just left it too late, and then… not telling you just became easier.” </p><p><br/> “This is easier?” Pam says, incredulously, and Ryan wants to laugh- not because he thinks it’s funny, because it isn’t, but because his emotions have to do something, have to go somewhere. </p><p><br/> “It’s not,” Ryan admits, and he rests his face against his palm. “It’s really not.” </p><p><br/> “What happens if you get it?” Pam asks, suddenly, and she turns to face him, finally. “What happens to us?” </p><p><br/> “We’d…” Ryan trails off, pressing his lips together. The obvious answer, to him, is simply for them both to move down to the city, but there’s a tone in Pam’s voice that makes him think that’s not at all the right thing to say out loud right now. He shrugs, biting at the inside of his cheek. “We could try long distance for a while, we could both move down to the city, we could- I don’t want to break up,” he adds, quickly, and Ryan feels like he’s drowning. They’re usually so connected, able to pick up on what the other is trying to get at even when they can’t quite get the words out. Arguing like this, with her? It feels like he’s running on uneven ground, leaping across chasms as they open up under his feet. </p><p><br/> “I don’t want to move to the city,” Pam says, shortly, but her shoulders sag almost immediately. “Ryan, I don’t- you can’t just make decisions like this, on your own, without giving me a warning or a hint or an inkling- we’re not- this is an <em>us</em>, Ryan, not just a <em>you</em>- do you have any idea how this makes me feel? To not be included in any of this? This is a huge decision, and you’ve just completely kept me in the dark about all of this, and that’s just not <em>fair</em>.” She’s crying again by the time she finishes, and Ryan can feel his heart almost snap in half, knowing that it’s him that’s done this to her. </p><p><br/> He pulls her in towards him, wrapping his arms around her in a loose hug, pressing his chin against the top of her head. </p><p><br/> “I’m sorry,” he says, softly. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t- I wasn’t thinking about what this would mean for us, I just saw an opportunity to get a better job, better pay, to move up. I don’t- I don’t know what this means for us, honestly, because I want you to come with me to the city if I get it, and even if I don’t get it I want you to move in with me anyway. </p><p><br/> “I just- I love you, and I want you with me, and if you don’t want to come to the city with me, at least not right away, that’s okay too, and we can do long distance, I can figure that out, we can switch weekends or something, I don’t know. Just- don’t- I’m sorry.” It’s the most honest he’s ever been, the longest string of true words he’s ever let spill out of his mouth. He feels like he’s been flayed, left open, and when he takes a breath his ribs hurt a little bit. </p><p><br/> She sobs, quietly, into his shoulder, and Ryan doesn’t quite understand why she’s crying, but he trusts her to tell him when she’s ready to. </p><p><br/> “I’m sorry, too,” she says, once her tears are slowed a little, and she pulls back, scrubbing at her cheeks with the heels of her hands. “I just kept imagining you panicking, getting some commitment thing all twisted up in your brain and seeing this as an out, and I got myself all worked up”- </p><p><br/> “You had a right to,” Ryan interrupts. He hates when she brings up how flakey he can be, how terrified he can be of anything that suggests long-term planning; he’s gotta over that, mostly, at least when it comes to her, and he hates knowing that she still gets nervous of him switching up on her like that. He swipes his thumb under her eye, catching a stray tear. “I was a dumbass.”  </p><p><br/> “Yeah, you were,” Pam says, and while there’s no bite to it, it’s not light hearted, either. “I forgive you, I do, but I can’t… you can’t just do things like that.” </p><p><br/> “I know,” Ryan says, and he means it, and he pulls her into a bear hug, pressing little kisses all over her face, making sure to gentle brush one against each of her cheeks. “It won’t happen again, I swear.” </p><p><br/> She kisses him, softly, tenderly, like she’s afraid he might break. “I love you,” she whispers, against his lips. </p><p><br/> “I love you, too,” he says. She laughs, tearily, and kisses him once more before releasing him. </p><p><br/> “Should we finish dinner?” she asks, her voice still watery, and Ryan leads them back to the table, topping off each of their wine glasses before he sits down. </p><p><br/> They talk about it some more, about the logistics of it, about what their plan’s going to be; it’s easier to discuss, now, he realizes, now that it’s all out on the table, all the tension dispersed. </p><p><br/> She doesn’t really want to move to New York, at least not yet, and if he’s offered the position, he’s definitely taking it, and they settle on an agreement to do long-distance, to really put an effort into it and make it work. </p><p><br/> He kisses her long and slow that night, tries to make her feel special and worshipped and loved. She does the same in the morning, pulling him tight against her and pressing words and promises into his skin with her fingertips. </p><p><br/> He does get the job, after Michael withdraws his name in solidarity with Jan and Jim withdraws his name to prove to Karen that he is committed, that he’s in it for the long haul with her. No one’d realized that Ryan was being considered, and when Wallace makes an announcement with a company-wide email there’s a ripple of shock through the office. </p><p><br/> He moves into the city the following weekend, Pam coming with him to help him settle into his new Manhattan apartment. It’s smaller than his Scranton one, a studio a little ways uptown, and it doesn’t quite feel like it’s his yet. </p><p><br/> She stays that first night, explores a little bit of the neighborhood with him, but then it’s Sunday, and she leaves mid-afternoon, wanting to be back in Scranton before it’s too late so she’s ready for work the next day. </p><p><br/> He waves good bye as she pulls away from the curb in front of his building, her blue Yaris disappearing into the heavy traffic almost immediately, and he trudges back up to his new apartment. </p><p><br/> It feels colder and more lonely than his Scranton one ever did, and he wraps himself up in his blankets on his bed, staring at the endless boxes he still has to unpack. He wishes she’d come with him, he realizes, wishes she was taking on this adventure with him instead of facing it alone.</p><p>—</p><p>The second Tuesday of the month is Ryan’s first official visit to the Scranton branch in his new position, and it gives him a little thrill to walk back into the office as VP of Northeast Sales. The building still smells the same and the elevator still creaks as it crawls to the second floor, giving him a weird sense of nostalgia that doesn’t really settle right across his skin. </p><p><br/> He hadn’t had time to see Pam yet, had driven directly to the branch from the city, and his heart skips a little when he walks through the door and sees her at reception. Her hair’s down today, and she’s got on the small diamond earrings Ryan had picked up for her last week. He misses her terribly, misses seeing her everyday. </p><p><br/>  She gives him a short kiss across the desk in greeting, still holding the phone up to her ear; she’s on hold with Raskin Design, she says, but she’s happy to see him, hopes they can get dinner later tonight, after work </p><p><br/> Ryan almost says he can’t stay, has to be back to the city by three-thirty for a meeting, but then he catches a waft of her perfume as she sits back down- springy, almost lemony, just as light and clean as he remembers- and he texts his assistant, tells him to push the meeting with the Yonkers HR Rep to tomorrow afternoon. </p><p><br/> His meeting with the Scranton branch goes well- they’re receptive to the idea of the website, willing to put in the time with their clients to talk it up, and they all seem excited about the company blackberrys, too. Michael does have a brief meltdown, but it’s remedied by the afternoon; all in all, his first visit goes smoother than he could’ve hoped for. </p><p><br/> “What do you want to do for dinner?” Ryan asks, leaning against the reception desk as Pam tugs on her coat. the candy dish she used to keep just for him has disappeared, and he digs around the in the communal one instead, fishing out a single green jolly rancher.  </p><p><br/> “Something nice,” she says, doing up her buttons. </p><p><br/> “You guys should come over!” Michael’s voice comes from right behind him, and Ryan jumps a little at the sound of it. He hadn’t heard Michael approaching, didn’t realize he was there. </p><p><br/> “For dinner?” Pam asks. Her fingers still, and she looks towards Ryan for help. Michael’d been pestering them for dinner for a month or so now, and so far they’d been able to avoid it just through claiming they had plans, but Michael’d sprung this one on him, and Ryan’s brain scrambles to find an out. </p><p><br/> “We- I have to be back, y’know, so I can get to work early tomorrow- Pam has, like, a thing, tonight-“ </p><p><br/> “You guys don’t have plans!” Michael says, cutting off Ryan’s excuses. “You were in the middle of making them! Andy and Angela are coming, it’ll be a really nice night.” </p><p><br/> Ryan can’t find an out quick enough, and neither can Pam, apparently, because before he knows it they’re reluctantly agreeing to Michael, promising to be at his condo by six-thirty. Ryan’s not thrilled- he doesn’t get much time with Pam anymore, and he covets the small amount that they do have, tries to protect it as much as he can. To have Michael storm in like this is less than ideal. </p><p><br/> He doesn’t even have a change of clothes, at least not an appropriate one. He doesn’t keep much in his car anymore- too afraid someone in the city will peer through the windows and steal his stuff- and he really doesn’t have anything at Pam’s anymore, either, besides some loungewear. He resigns himself to his work suit- an expensive one, mind, not the JC Penny’s button ups and slacks he wore as a salesman- as Pam gets changed into a navy blue dress, a really flattering one that Ryan wishes she wasn’t wasting on a dinner party at Michael and Jan’s condo. </p><p><br/> “Do we have to go?” he whines, once he sees her in the dress. She swats at his legs, propped up on her coffee table, though there’s not much energy behind it. </p><p><br/> “It’ll mean a lot to him,” she says, and it’s just evasive enough to not really be an answer. He groans, loudly, rolling off her coach and grabbing his keys. They’re quiet on the ride over, though not necessarily uncomfortably so. Still, Ryan can’t shake the feeling something’s off between them, like they’re just ever so slightly off beat to each other. </p><p><br/> Jan answers the door, eyeballing Ryan haughtily. He can’t say he blames her- he did take her job, after all- but he’s still bored by it. He’s not really in the mood to argue with Jan tonight, nor endure her pointed glances and remarks. Michael gives them a tour, and they spend a considerable amount of time in Jan’s ‘candle room.’ All Ryan wants to do is get out of the condo and take Pam somewhere else, but he can’t quite catch her to convince her to skip out. </p><p><br/> The tension just ratchets up as Andy and Angela arrive, mismatched and insufferable as always, Angela making blatant comments at just how low her opinion is of Pam. It makes Ryan bristle every time he hears it, and it’s all he can do to keep his mouth shut. </p><p><br/> They suffer through an entirely too long game of charades, which Ryan tries his best to avoid participating in, only making a few careless guesses after Pam elbows him in the ribs. Jan throws on a CD Hunter made at one point, which is really the only high point. It gives him something to hold over Hunter’s head, which should hopefully knock the smarmy kid down a peg or two; he obviously hadn’t gotten over Jan leaving, and he was doing pretty subpar work for Ryan so far. </p><p><br/> Dwight showing up halfway through the night with his old babysitter doesn’t even feel out of place, honestly; he’s brought his own wine glasses, and his own food, and Ryan can tell that Jan doesn’t know how to turn them away without making a scene in front of them all, and they’re allowed to stay. </p><p><br/> The dinner itself isn’t even that great- it’s some mushy, briney fish that took exactly too long to cook, and Ryan pushes it around on his plate more than actually eating it. </p><p><br/> He fills up his wine glass again just as Jan starts telling a story of how Michael ran through their glass door, shattering it, in an effort to chase down the ice cream truck. </p><p><br/> “It was- it was very clean,” Michael stammers, obviously embarrassed and obviously angry, white-knuckling the grip on his fork. Ryan takes a long sip from his wine glass to hide his amusement; beyond Hunter’s song, this is the only thing that’s happened tonight that’s worth his attention. </p><p><br/> “Of course it was clean, I know it was clean. You know how I know it was clean? Because I’m the only one who ever cleans anything in this house,” Jan shoots back, and the daggers she’s shooting at Michael would’ve been scary only six months ago; now, though, they’re almost pathetic. </p><p><br/> Michael stands, wordlessly, from his chair and marches into the garage, his mouth set in a determined line. Ryan leans back in his chair, brushing his hand across Pam’s shoulder as he loops it around her. </p><p><br/> “This is getting ridiculous,” Pam says, and she drops her knife and fork, forgoing any  further attempt to look like she’s eating. </p><p><br/> “‘Getting’?” Ryan asks, topping off his wine glass again. “This whole night has been a trainwreck.” </p><p><br/> “I can hear you,” Jan snaps, and Ryan wishes he cared. </p><p><br/> Michael bangs the garage door open, announcing his return. He pins up his neon beer sign above the dining room table, the blue light harsh and too bright for the small space. It’s unflattering against Jan’s skin, and Ryan’s sure he can count the wrinkles starting to form on Jan’s face. </p><p><br/> “Take the beer sign down, babe, and we can discuss it after our guests leave,” she says. Michael shakes his head, and then Jan’s draining her wine glass and beelining over to the stereo. </p><p><br/> Hunter’s song starts blaring through the condo again, the volume entirely too loud, and then they’re screaming at each other. It’s the most entertainment he’s seen all night, and he can’t help but be a little excited when Jan throws a Dundie at Michael’s TV, cracking the display. </p><p><br/> “Can we leave?” Pam asks, and she’s got both her arms wrapped around herself. Ryan’s out of his chair and at the coatrack in a flash, tossing her peacoat to her while trying to pull on his own top coat at the same time. </p><p><br/> “Great dinner,” Ryan says, pumping Michael’s hand with faux enthusiasm; he’s still trying to yell at Jan, and it makes the angle a little weird, but the throws Jan a peace sign and then he and Pam are outside, the front door shut firmly between them and the chaos. </p><p><br/> There’s not a lot of time left in the night, not if Ryan wants to make it back home at a reasonable hour, and he and Pam end up eating McDonald’s drive thru in a gas station parking lot. </p><p><br/> “I’m sorry about tonight,” he says, balling up the paper from his finished burger and tossing it in the backseat. “I really wanted to have a good night, take you somewhere nice, spend some time with you, and I’m sorry tonight sucked.” </p><p><br/> Pam hums, but it’s flat, and she swallows a bite of her own burger. “I think it could’ve been a nice night,” she says. </p><p><br/> Ryan doesn’t really have an answer for that, doesn’t even really understand what she’s trying to get at, and his eyebrows knit together as he puts the car in drive. Pam shrugs at his silence, but she elaborates anyway. </p><p><br/> “I just mean… I think, if you hadn’t spent the night moping and moody, we could’ve had a good time,” she says. </p><p><br/> “You went to the same dinner party I did, right?” he asks. “Because the one I was at was absolute chaos and completely ridiculous.”</p><p> <br/> “Yeah, but I think we could’ve had fun, all the same. We could’ve made it fun.” </p><p><br/> Ryan falls silent. He doesn’t know what to do with that, what she wants him to say to that. She’s right, he supposes; he probably could’ve been a little more present, probably could’ve joked around with her and made the night a little more enjoyable. His annoyance at having to be at the dinner party in the first place had overshadowed him, and he feels a little foolish. </p><p><br/> They don’t talk the rest of the ride home, and this time it’s distinctly more uncomfortable. He drops her off at her apartment with a lingering kiss, but he can’t shake his anxiety as he drives back into the city. His chest feels hollow, like there’s something that’s been there a while and now it’s disappeared, and he can’t figure out for the life of him how to get the feeling to go away. </p><p>— </p><p>Ryan settles into corporate better than he ever did in Scranton. He likes the nice suits he gets to wear to work, loves showing up five days a week to a high-rise where a person presses the elevator buttons for him, and he really loves the bustling, constant busyness of the city. His corporate co-workers are open to his ideas, receptive and equally creative, and he feels more challenged here, as well more rewarded. </p><p><br/> The only thing he hates is his cold, empty apartment, which, in spite of his best efforts, still seems impersonal, like it’s lifted from a catalogue spread and not a space he exists and lives in. </p><p><br/> He doesn’t even mind working weekends or overtime, honestly. He feels important going in on a Saturday, like he’s really making changes and affecting the company’s trajectory. Hunter’s less than thrilled, because if Ryan’s there than Hunter has to be, too, but Ryan buys him a company blackberry, and that shuts him up. That and the fact that Ryan won’t stop singing the song Jan had played for them, which seems to ruffle Hunter’s feathers. </p><p><br/> Ryan’s working another late Friday when his desk calendar catches his eye, ‘Scranton’ sprawled in big red letters over this upcoming weekend. Fuck. It’s his weekend to go to Scranton- Pam’s sister is driving up, and they’re having a birthday party for her mother on Saturday afternoon- and Ryan’s forgotten completely about it. He pulls up his Google calendar, already knowing he’s scheduled overtime for tomorrow and possibly even into Sunday. </p><p><br/> Sure enough, he’s got three meetings tomorrow, two with the IT department and web designers, and one with David Wallace and Alan Brand, and he can’t cancel or reschedule any of them. The David and Alan one had been a bitch to schedule in the first place, and with his website project teetering on the edge, the last thing he wants to do is make a bad impression on Alan. </p><p><br/> He sighs, digging the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and counting to three before dialing Pam’s number on his work phone. He leaves it on speaker, listening to the rings as he continues clacking away at his keyboard. </p><p><br/> She picks up on the third ring, her voice warm but tired. Ryan realizes it’s almost nine, and he mutes his microphone for a split second to swear under his breath. <br/> “Hey,” she says. He can hear a faint purring in the background; Spud must be curled on her chest, which means she’s already tucked herself into bed. “You didn’t just leave work, did you?” she asks. He usually calls her on his ride home, especially when he gets out late. </p><p><br/> “I’m, uh, actually still here,” he says. </p><p><br/> “Oh,” she says, more of a sound than an actual thought, and then-  “It’s so late, Ry, you should get home.” </p><p><br/> “I can’t, I’ve got a lot I have to prepare for these meetings I’ve got.” </p><p><br/> “Well, don’t stay too much later, Mom’s party’s at noon tomorrow.” </p><p><br/> Ryan can tell from her voice that she’s already questioning if he’s still going to be able to make it; he can hear the little waver of her tone at the end, the not-quite question she’s trying to include without actually asking it. He doesn’t want to do this, doesn’t want to disappoint her, but he can’t jeopardize his website project, either. He’d sold it to shareholders on the basis that it would re-invigorate sales, re-charge what seemed to be a dying industry, and he’s worried what’ll happen to his job if it fails. </p><p><br/> “I… About that,” he says, clearing his throat. He puts his monitor to sleep, turning to phone, praying that she’ll be understanding of this. “I am… not going to be able to make it. To your mom’s party. Or at all, this weekend.” </p><p><br/> The line goes silent for so long that, if it wasn’t for Spud’s continued, barely audible purring, he would’ve guessed she hung up on him.</p><p> <br/> “Are you kidding me,” she says, finally, in a way that’s absolutely not a question. “This is- Ryan, you <em>promised</em> me you would be at this, I even reminded you last week-“ </p><p><br/> “I know, I know,” he doesn’t have any defense for himself, just sits there, smoothing his tie down flat to his shirt. </p><p><br/> “I can’t believe this,” Pam says, and her voice breaks just the tiniest bit. Ryan glances at his desk calendar again, the red letters screaming at him from between three different stacks of papers. “I really, really, can’t believe this.” </p><p><br/> “There’s meeting’s scheduled for tomorrow that I can’t push off,” he’s careful to keep his voice even and as apologetic as possible; he knows this sucks for her, he knows this is his fault, and he wants to avoid an argument, if at all possible. </p><p><br/> Pam sighs down the receiver, some mixture of anger and confusion and bewilderment that settles in his gut like a rock. Neither of them say anything for a long moment. Ryan’s too afraid to add anything, doesn’t want to make the situation worse, so he stares down at his nails, picking at some calloused skin on his index finger.  <br/> “You’re not even going to apologize?” Pam says, her voice sharper and harsher then he’s ever heard it. His blood runs cold in an instant, backtracking through the conversation. Had he really not apologized? Not even said a single ‘sorry’? </p><p><br/> “Pam-“ he starts, and he’s floundering already. </p><p><br/> “Whatever,” Pam cuts him off, and he can’t tell if it’s because she wants to avoid an argument or if it’s because she doesn’t care about his excuses. “I’m going to bed. I’ll call you later.”  </p><p><br/> She’s fighting back tears, he can tell that much, and that strikes him in an odd way. She’s cried in front of him plenty of times before- has cried because of him a few times, too- and the fact that she’s closing herself off like this, shutting down towards him is hard for him to stomach. </p><p><br/> “Okay,” he says, and he hates the notes of uncertainty the edge around his words. “I love you.” </p><p><br/> “Love you too,” she says, a crackling sob leaking down the receiver on the last word, and then the line goes dead. </p><p><br/> “Sleep well,” he mumbles, to nothing but the dial tone, and then he wakes his monitor and continues working, chewing against the inside of his cheek. He doesn’t actually leave the office until almost ten-thirty, which Hunter makes a number of irritated comments on, but Ryan doesn’t even have the energy to bite back at him. </p><p>__</p><p><br/> His meetings go well all weekend, even as they run a little longer than they should, spilling over into Sunday. Wallace and Alan are both thrilled with his projections, Alan shaking his hand when they’re done and grinning, spitting rapid-fire buzzwords at him about how excited he is for the website to be finished. </p><p><br/> Ryan resists the urge to call Pam all weekend, but he does drop her mother a quick line late on Saturday afternoon, wishing her a happy birthday and apologizing for missing it. For all of Pam’s anger on Friday evening, she doesn’t seem to have shared how upset she was with her family at all, because Helene is genial and kind, waving off his apology like it’s nothing. He orders a bouquet for her to be delivered on Monday as he’s on the phone with her, in-between his meetings. </p><p><br/> Pam calls on Sunday night, after he’s helped himself to a pathetic dinner of three-day-old Chinese takeaway leftovers and four episodes of America’s Next Top Model, which he doesn’t even like. </p><p><br/> “Hi,” he answers the phone timidly, biting down on his thumb. He’s not really scared of her, but he doesn’t want her to be upset, especially not at him, and not hearing from her all weekend long has taken a toll on him. </p><p><br/> “I’m really, really upset,” she says, skipping right past a greeting, and he winces. </p><p><br/> “I know,” he says, “and I am beyond sorry.” </p><p><br/> “Did your meetings go well?” she asks, and Ryan is pretty sure it’s not a trick, that she’s not trying to get him to say something he’ll regret, but it’s such a quick change in topic that it catches him a little off guard. </p><p><br/> “Uh, yeah, they went really well,” he says. </p><p><br/> “Good. I’m proud of you,” she says, and then the line is silent, like it so often is these days with them. Ryan hates it. “Was- were the meetings worth it?” she asks, so quietly he almost misses it. </p><p><br/> It takes him by surprise, so much so that he can’t do anything other than answer her with the truth. “I… a little,” he admits. “Not worth making you upset, or having to cancel on your and your family, but it was worth the work.” </p><p><br/> She hums, a short, clipped noise, and they sit there for a few more moments, neither daring to speak. He feels like he’s drifting, floating aimlessly in an ocean that seems familiar enough on the surface but is woefully, horribly, completely strange to him.</p><p><br/> He has no idea how long they sit there, in silence, listening to each other breathing, but when they do hang up, he feels like he hasn’t slept in three days. He curls up in his bed, under his sheets, not even bothering to look at the time- his alarm’ll go off automatically tomorrow morning, anyway. Whatever divide that’s opened between him and Pam, he hopes they can bridge it, meet in the middle over it. </p><p>—</p><p>The month passes in a flurry of meetings and long nights trapped in his office, toiling away on presentations and spreadsheets and data analysis. Ryan barely knows what day of the week it is anymore; Hunter, sick of working seven days a week, bars them from entering the building on Sunday, and even though Ryan can’t really blame him, he also doesn’t really know what to do with himself if he’s not working. </p><p><br/> The last Tuesday of the month dawns with a loose chill that doesn’t match the clear skies. He trudges into his office just before seven, before the sun’s really come up. He’s decided to let Hunter sleep in today, hadn’t bothered to tell him he was coming in early, and the dim emptiness of the building is oppressive. He’s got his coffee, though, and a Hostess cupcake, and when he wakes his monitor up it’s still showing the report he’d been working on last night before he’d left. </p><p><br/> Ryan’s still clacking away on a quarterly projection when Hunter does finally pop in, with a light rap on his open glass door and another coffee in his hands.</p><p><br/> “Gimme,” Ryan says, and he makes grabby motions with his left hand as he continues  typing with his right. Hunter rolls his eyes, but he obliges, anyway.  </p><p><br/> “When’d you get in?” he asks, pressing the paper cup into Ryan’s hand. Ryan takes a long sip from it, ignoring the burn in his mouth and throat. </p><p><br/> “Six forty-five? Sometime around there,” he says, swallowing another gulp of coffee. Hunter doesn’t say anything to that, just turns to leave, pulling Ryan’s door mostly closed behind him. The noise level in the building had been starting to pick up, and it fades again with the door as a buffer; for all his general aura of apathy, Hunter does pay attention to what Ryan needs, and he’s grateful for the twerp. </p><p><br/> The report is finalized sometime after three, and Ryan saves it and sends it to Hunter’s printer as he opens up his email and Powerpoint, scrubbing at his face. A packaged salad and sandwich appeared on his desk at one point, accompanied by a bottled soda. He hadn’t ordered anything, and he glances through his door to where Hunter’s desk is. The kid’s not paying attention to him, the phone pressed between his cheek and shoulder as he scribbles furiously on his note pad. </p><p><br/> Ryan’s oddly touched. He’d spent the last three months sure that Hunter despised him, especially as Ryan’d made him work increasingly longer days. He breaks open the salad container, picking away at it as he wades through his overflowing email inbox. There’s at least two emails from every branch manager in the Northeast- Michael alone had sent him twenty-five- and he only finishes responding to them as it’s nearing five. </p><p><br/> He remembers the sandwich as it draws closer to six, and he digs into that as he starts preparing a presentation for the following day, one that he’s going to have to workshop at each of the branches- this one’s just the boilerplate template, and he’s going to have to edit this twelve times over for the specific branches. Ryan sets a timer on his phone for three hours from now so he can get up and stretch, preparing himself for another long day. </p><p><br/> There’s another tap of knuckles against glass, a little after six-thirty, and Ryan glances up to see Hunter in the doorway. </p><p> “Sorry, I’m not trying to interrupt, I was just wondering how much longer you were planning to be?” he asks, and Ryan shrugs, yawning. </p><p><br/> “I have no idea, honestly. A while,” he says. Hunter grimaces and nods jerkily, obviously displeased with the answer, turning to leave the office. “You can go, if you want,” Ryan hears himself say. “There’s not much for you to do this late, and I can hold down the fort.” </p><p><br/> Hunter visibly brightens, and he thanks Ryan a few times as he starts packing up his things. He knocks on the door once more as he leaves, waving good bye to him through the glass. Even though they’d barely spoken to each other all day, Ryan still feels a lot lonelier once he’s gone, and he punches away miserably at his keyboard.</p><p> <br/> He does get out earlier than he would’ve guessed he could, but the sun’s still well past set and he’s exhausted as he exits the building. There’s a small bodega on his way home, and he pops in and grabs a case of beer and a bag of pretzels- and, against his better judgement, and at the last second, a pack of Marb 100’s, too. </p><p><br/> His apartment has a tiny balcony facing the street, and he flops onto the chair he’d dragged out there, after he’s changed into a pair of sweatpants and one of his loose t-shirts. The cigarette feels decadent as he lights it, a reward of some sort, and he exhales softly, into the breeze. </p><p><br/> It’s the first moment of peace Ryan’s had in god knows how long, and he feels well and truly relaxed for the first time in what feels like weeks. He sparks another one after he’s done, and then a third, and as he watches the smoke drift up wards, curling around his fingers in the glow of the city night, he realizes he hasn’t spoken to Pam since Saturday morning. </p><p><br/> “Fuck,” he snaps, and he drops his head into his hands. He hadn’t seen her for two weeks now, had been too busy in the last crunch efforts of his project to be able to drive out to Scranton, and he hadn’t wanted to have her come all the way down here just for him to spend the entire weekend in his office. </p><p><br/> He’d been calling her, though, at least once a day, and though some of the conversations had been terse and short, he’d taken a lot of solace and comfort in hearing her voice. He’s appalled that she slipped his mind completely, appalled that he let this stupid fucking website take up this much of his headspace and time. </p><p><br/> He digs his blackberry out of his sweatpants pocket, dialing her number as he brings it up to his ear, his cigarette dangling forgotten in his mouth. </p><p> The line rings for longer than it usually does, and Ryan’s terrified she’s going to send him to voicemail, but it clicks at the last second, and he exhales a sigh of relief, smoke curling out of his mouth as he does so. </p><p><br/> “Hey,” she says, and it’s equal parts disappointment, hurt, and anger. He closes his eyes, dropping his cigarette to his fingers as he speaks. </p><p><br/> “I’m so fucking sorry,” he says, and even as it comes out of his mouth, he knows it doesn’t matter. It seems like all does recently with Pam is apologize, and even though he means it- means it more than he could ever express it- it rings false with repetition. </p><p><br/> “I’m sure you are,” she says. It’s not unkind, but it’s not all that understanding, either. </p><p><br/> “I don’t- I don’t know what else to say,” Ryan admits, taking another drag. He’s almost to the filter now, the ash end warming the edges of fingers as he holds the butt. “It’s this fucking website, I’m burning the candle at both ends trying to finish this thing, but it’s almost over I swear, and then”- </p><p><br/> “And then what, exactly?” Pam interrupts. It’s not curt, or even sharp it’s- it’s exhausted, Ryan realizes, tired. “And then you start another project, and this starts again? I’m so tired of this,” and her voice breaks on the last few words, snapping in half with a wobble. </p><p><br/> Ryan stubs his cigarette out, rolling the filter between his thumb and forefinger. He’s just as exhausted as she sounds, suddenly. </p><p><br/> “It’s the distance thing,” he says. “If you moved here, I think it’d be a lot better, y’know? We’d see each other a lot more- there’s a great graphic design school here, too, and you could enroll in that.” </p><p><br/> “It’s not just the distance,” Pam says quietly. </p><p><br/> “What do you mean?” </p><p><br/> “Ryan, please- please don’t make this harder,” she says, her voiced tottering somewhere between pleading and crying. Ryan realizes what she’s getting at; it dawns on him all at once, between heartbeats, and he feels like he’s been dropped head first in a frozen lake. </p><p><br/> He sparks another cigarette, not caring if she hears- and she has to, the lighter flick is right near the speaker on his phone- and draws in a long, shaky breath. “Pam,” he says, “we can fix this- I can fix this.” </p><p><br/> “Even if I did move there, you’re so wrapped in your work, and you’re always traveling, and even if I do enroll in some art program, I”m still stuck waiting for you to get home every night.”  </p><p><br/> “This websites almost done, though, and then I’ll have acres of free time, and I”- </p><p><br/> “I don’t even want to live in the city,” she says, and her voice is exhausted again, and Ryan feels like crying. He turns his head skyward, blinking back traitor tears with gravity. The line is quiet for several long moments, and he sucks down most of his fourth cigarette in the silence. </p><p> “I love you,” he says, finally.</p><p><br/> “I love you, too.” </p><p><br/> “This is it, then, is it?” he asks. </p><p><br/> “I think it is,” she agrees, and Ryan draws in a watery breath, digging the heel of his left hand into his eye socket, trying to press his tears back into his body. He cycles through everything he could’ve done differently, what he could’ve said to her or how he could’ve found the time to drive into Scranton even with his workload. Not that it matters, now, anyway. </p><p><br/> Pam sniffles on the other end, and it breaks Ryan’s dam. He couldn’t stop his sobs at this point, even if he wanted to, and through them he can hear Pam crying, too. It takes a few minutes and a few attempts at deep breathing for him to pull it together. </p><p><br/> “I… “ he starts, but there’s so much he needs to say to her that he can’t even find a place to start, and his statement just hangs there, lost somewhere in air between New York and Scranton. </p><p><br/> “I know,” Pam says, gently, and he knows it’s true, that she’s somehow heard everything he wants to tell her, and he feels his stomach twist again as he realizes exactly what he’s losing. He doesn’t want the call to end, could say on the line with her all night, but she bids him goodbye a few moments later, and then Ryan’s utterly, crushingly, alone. </p><p><br/> He debates sparking up another cigarette, but his stomach’s already feeling a little sick from the other four, and he retreats back inside, instead. His alarm is set for entirely too early tomorrow, but he can’t sleep, stares at the ceiling most of the night. </p><p><br/> He’s sure he looks like a haggard mess the next day, and Hunter’s little ‘oh’ as he hands Ryan his morning coffee only underlines this. Ryan just grunts out a thanks, not pausing as his hands fly across the keyboard. He throws himself into his work completely, barely even taking a break to go home and sleep. <br/> It doesn’t make him feel better, but it keeps him occupied, and that’s really all he needs.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I promise this hasn't been abandoned! Thank you for your kudos + your comments- they make me smile a lot to read + see, and I hope this chapter didn't disappoint. This does have a happy ending, I swear, but the next chapter will also have a few bumps in the road. Thank you for sticking with me for so long! Chapter title is from 'See the Sun' by the Kooks.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>